“We’ve heard stories, though,” Nick interjected. “I just didn’t know if they were real or not.”
“Oh, yeah.” The man nodded. “It’s real, all right. I know almost everything about its history, but something still seems to surprise me every time I’m here.”
My spine straightened as I watched the man. He seemed good-natured, but I couldn’t help being suspicious of him.
“How did you get here?” I asked with a judging tone and pinched eyes.
Everyone gawked at me like I was being rude.
“I mean, I didn’t see any other cars on the road,” I added with a lighter lift in my voice.
“Oh, I came in from the other side.” He pointed back beyond the far buildings. “From the agricultural fields. It’s where they grew all their own food. You know, for the asylum. It housed over two thousand patients at its height. Major overcrowding.”
I could tell he was overloaded with details about the place and wanting to share them. It was clear he’d been studying it for some time. But I couldn’t shake my distress from the vision of the dead woman, and I needed to get away from him so I could talk to Kaitlin.
“Well, nice to meet you,” I said. “I think we’ll just walk around and explore a bit.”
He shifted his weight to the other foot. “All right. You’ll see the women’s wards along the right side of the grounds.” He pointed to a row of buildings along the road. “The Excited Ward, the Convulsing Ward, the Untidy Ward, and the Quiet Ward. The men’s wards are along the other side, identical.” He pointed his arm in the other direction. “The infirmary is the one down there with the raised roof. They believed the sicknesses would rise and leave the building through the vaulted ceiling.”
My eyes widened with interest. He did know a lot about the place.
He continued, “And the high-security ward, Ward B, is at the back with the fencing around it. That was where the most dangerous and volatile patients were sent.” He paused. “The first floor was triage. The second floor was suicide watch.”
“Wow. Quite a history to this place,” Braden said, studying each building as if they would start telling their own stories at any moment.
Hooking onto Kaitlin’s elbow, I started walking. “Okay, we’ll be sure to have a look. Thanks.” And trying not to appear too rude, I continued moving away from the group with Kaitlin in hopes the guys would follow.
Braden’s face showed surprise that I didn’t want to hear more from this man. Nick had stopped listening halfway through, which was typical of his attention span. Braden reached forward, then shook the guy’s hand.
“Thanks. I’m Braden,” he said.
“I’m Tom Johnson,” the man replied, gripping Braden’s hand. “I actually used to work here, some twenty years ago, when the last of the men’s wards were still open. Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll be here for a little while more.” He passed a business card to him.
“Thanks, man. And these are my….” Braden stopped, realizing we’d already stepped away. He shrugged and then hurried to catch up to us.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I shook my head. Maybe my mind had been playing tricks on me. Maybe it was my head injury. I turned to Kaitlin, examining her ashen face.
“You saw it, too?” I whispered.
She pressed her lips together as if refusing to speak.
“Kaitlin. Did you see her?” I repeated.
She nodded once.
I covered my mouth with a shaky hand as she confirmed the vision I’d seen of the woman hanging from the tree.
“Shit.” I dropped her elbow from mine, then stepped away from her. “What the fuck was that?”
Kaitlin blinked as if trying to wash away what she had seen. “Let’s go,” she said. “I want to go home.”
“Maybe it was just our minds playing tricks on us,” I said. “I mean, that guy, Tom…he was in the background walking toward us when we saw her. Maybe it was a strange trick of the light coming through the branches, mixed with the movement of him approaching.”
It was possible. It was one potential explanation. And it was certainly more rational than our initial interpretation.
“Do you think so?” Kaitlin asked.
I shot a look back toward the tree to see if it could be a real possibility. Maybe the light was still hitting it in a way that would illuminate Tom again.
But my attention jumped to a new situation that raised my flight response again.
Tom was gone.
I frantically searched in every direction to find where Tom might have gone. He’d just disappeared.
“Where’d he go?” I blurted, searching the entire area.
Braden turned, scanning the location we’d just walked away from. “He must be behind one of the buildings or something.” He looked back at me. “Did he freak you out?”
“No, I just…” I hesitated, searching for my words so I wouldn’t sound crazy. “I just looked back and poof, he was gone.”
“He’s just a history nerd,” Nick interjected. “We could take him, no problem.” He jabbed at Braden’s arm.
I glanced at the tree and all around it. He’d stepped out of sight so quickly, but Braden was right. He was probably just behind a building or something.
“Let’s check out the high-security ward,” Nick said. “I want to see where they put the psychos. I bet it’s haunted.”
Braden turned to me to see if I wanted to go.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think Kaitlin’s ready to get out of here.”
“Noo. We have to check it out,” Nick whined.
“Dude,” Braden said with a firm tone. “The girls are hurt. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean their injuries don’t exist.”
Nick kicked at the dirt, put his hands in his pockets. “Fine. But I’m coming back here,” he added. “I want to break into one of these buildings and see what’s inside.”
Braden glanced back to where Tom had been. “Yeah, maybe when that guy’s gone. He probably wouldn’t appreciate us violating his asylum.”
I had to admit, breaking into one of the buildings had crossed my mind as well. Numerous times since we’d entered the grounds. And I knew it was more than a whim. It was a necessity. A new obsession. I had to see inside one. Or all of them.
“Do you think it would be possible?” I asked. “You know…to break into one?”
Braden’s eyes widened. “Seriously? You’d want to?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Definitely.”
I raised an eyebrow at Kaitlin. “How about you?”
She lifted her drooped head, catching my eye. Fear radiated from her pupils, causing my heart rate to increase double-time. But then she nodded and said, “Yeah. I need to.”
“What do you mean ‘you need to’?” Nick asked with a cynical tone.
“I mean, I’m curious,” Kaitlin clarified. “I can’t leave without seeing inside one.”
“I thought you wanted to get out of here, like, now,” I said.
She shot her eyes all around us to be sure we were alone. “I’ve got a little bit left in me. Let’s just poke around a tiny bit more.”
I chewed my bottom lip and thought of wandering through the grounds more. Maybe we would find a weak spot in one of the boards or a door with a padlock that might not be fully secured. Anything was possible in such a big place.
We walked along the road that trailed in front of the women’s wards. Each red-brick building held a unique shape, but they displayed similar architectural style. One had pointed gables and small windows, while another was squarer and more ivy-covered.
We passed in front of the one with the slate-tiled gables, and my body stiffened. My arms dragged with a weight that felt like sandbags hanging from my wrists. I slowed my pace, then stopped directly in front of the building and stared at it.
The weight continued to pull on my arms as a strange feeling of intense sadness moved through me. The sadness filled my neck, making it impossible to swallow o
r speak. Pushing my mouth open, I forced out the only sound I could conjure.
“Ackk.” The ache in my broken voice frightened me.
“Grace,” Braden called. “What is it?” He launched to my side and shook my shoulder.
The power in his grip jolted the feeling of immense sadness out of me, and I took a deep gasp of air. Turning to Kaitlin, I froze in terror as I took her in.
She stood with her shoulders dropped low, as if pulled down by a great weight, and she gazed at the front door of the gabled building in terror. Her mouth propped open as if trying to speak but there were no words, only a familiar spine-tingling sound I couldn’t unhear.
Misery in her voice grated out of her. “Ackk.”
Chapter 5
There was something odd about the building. An uncomfortable, excited energy that unnerved me. Something sinister.
And it had its hooks in Kaitlin, too.
I grabbed onto her arm, then yanked her away from the gabled ward. She shook her head as she stumbled along with me.
“I feel like I’m trapped in a bad dream,” she said. “What is this place? It’s like it’s haunted or something.”
“I know. I feel it, too,” I agreed. “It’s like the souls here are still in torment or something. The unsettled energy is crazy.”
Braden stepped closer. “You guys are kinda freakin’ me out. Are you connecting with paranormal vibes or something? Do we need to bring the ghost-hunters in?”
I ran my fingers through my hair, attempting to look as normal as possible in such an abnormal situation. Braden was noticing our odd behavior, and his confused reaction was my gauge. If he thought we were acting weird, then we were. Maybe my head injury was worse than I’d realized. Particularly if I couldn’t hide its symptoms from my friends.
“Don’t worry, Braden,” I said in a lighter tone. “We’re just having fun. We love this freaky stuff. You know that.”
Kaitlin frowned, and I shot a glare at her to get her to play along with my farce. She caught my signal, then nodded in understanding. I nearly rolled my eyes at her lag time for not keeping up with my thought process, wondering if her concussion was to blame.
Although, I still couldn’t understand why my own injury felt so…good. I’d never felt smarter or clearer in all my life. Like a new doorway had been opened. One that invited me into its secret realm.
As we walked a few paces away from the gabled ward, a strange high-pitched sound turned all of our heads toward the middle of the grounds. We stared at a long, one-story building with the loading dock that ran across the front of it. Then the sound faded.
“What the hell was that?” Nick stopped in his tracks.
We shifted and changed our direction, as if by instinct, and walked toward the plain building. My eyes narrowed as I studied its features, devoid of architectural beauty, possibly built after the original brick buildings, and wondered what it could be.
“Let’s check it out,” Braden said as he picked up his pace.
We crossed the green and passed a row of mature black maples. The thick trunks and sturdy branches hinted at their proud status as original occupants to the institution—their stories held tight within the rings of their dense wood.
I kept my eyes set forward for fear of seeing another image of a person hanging from the regal boughs. It was a gruesome sight I hoped to never see again.
We approached the long building, moving toward the cement stairs that led up to the platform of the loading dock. Like a porch, it ran along the entire front of the building. Braden hopped up the steps. In two strides, he was on the deck. He edged along the platform, surveying the main entrance, which was tightly padlocked.
My eyes shot to the side of the building in response to a rattling sound—metal banging on metal with a clanging vibration.
“What the hell?” I gasped.
Braden hopped down from the front of the dock, and the four of us snuck around to the side of the building, following the strange sound. As we rounded the corner, our feet sank in a thin layer of black mud that covered the pavement. In a gradual downward slope of the asphalt, the mud thickened at the bottom and oozed up the sides of our shoes.
“Try to walk around it,” I said. “It only gets deeper over here.” I pointed toward the edge of the building and then I fell silent.
At the bottom edge of the building, the foundation was exposed. Crumbling cracked concrete led to a metal grate—a vent of some sort. A large piece of plywood leaned against the vent in a makeshift attempt at holding it in place. The screws of the metal grate had come loose from their concrete housing, and the iron frame rattled whenever the plywood caught the slightest breeze.
The vent was expansive. Big enough even for Braden to pass through.
I crouched, peering into the darkness behind the grate. It led to a crawl space below the building. Maybe there was access to the inside from under there. My skin prickled with excitement.
“Should we try to squeeze in?” I pulled on the edge of the metal screen.
“Shit,” Nick complained. “We’ll get dirty.” He looked at us to see if we were seriously considering going into the rotting crawl space. “These are my good shoes.” He glanced at the bright white of his new Vans.
“Dude, it’s worth it,” Braden said. “It’s just asking for us to go in.” He pulled the plywood away from the opening.
Yanking along the edges of the metal covering, I found the bottom corner to be the weakest. I was able to pull it away from the edge of the building just far enough for someone to squeeze in.
With a grin, I said, “Who’s first?”
Everyone regarded me like I was insane.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go first.” I waved for Braden to step closer to hold the metal covering for me. “Keep it pulled open. And Nick, shine your flashlight in there. I need to see what I’m heading into.”
Nick pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s gonna drain my battery.”
“Just do it,” I said as I bent for a better look in.
Kaitlin squeezed up behind me. “What if we get caught?”
I shot a glance toward the green, searching for any sign of Tom, then pushed through the opening. My shirt snagged on the jagged edge of the metal caging, tearing slightly, and the knees of my jeans grew wet from the damp flooring. I crawled in farther. “Come on. Kaitlin. You next.”
She bounced in place, contemplating the derelict building. “But there’s a sign over there. It says hazardous.”
“We’ll be careful,” I called. “Come on. It’s creepy in here alone.” I twisted to see behind me, half-expecting a rabid raccoon to hiss at me or a decomposing corpse to grab me.
The crawl space went under only a small portion of the building. A few oversized cylinders were piled in the corner.
“Shine your light over there.” I pointed for Nick. The beam sent a dull glow toward the packaging materials, and I saw black stenciled lettering on the brown cylinders that read ‘Blackwood State Hospital’. Burlap bags lay all around them, shredded, probably by rats. I grimaced at the thought of stumbling onto a rat’s nest. I’d rather bump into a decaying zombie.
“I’m coming in next,” Braden called.
Kaitlin continued to fidget at the grate, while Nick aimed his flashlight at us.
I crawled farther in to make room for him, then scooched closer to the pile of cylinder containers. A shiny tin hatch was positioned directly above the pile, and I turned to Braden with wide eyes.
“There’s a door,” I whispered. “Like a laundry shoot.”
Braden struggled within the small space, cursing as he awkwardly dragged himself closer.
“Where?” He glanced up from his efforts for a quick look.
I pulled myself over the cardboard barrels, then pressed on the tin hatch. It rattled loosely on its hinges. “Here!”
Braden examined the potential access point before whispering for Kaitlin and Nick to follow. I squatted under the metal cover, then pushed up
on it fully. It was light, and it bowed and banged from my efforts. With little resistance, it opened up into the floor above.
I stared back at Braden with my mouth open.
“Can you see in?” he asked as he crawled closer.
I stood taller so I could lift my eyes just above the opening to see where it might lead. The fear of vermin jumping at my face was my primary concern, then maybe decapitation from a random ax-wielder just waiting for a stupid person to poke their head up into their lair.
In absolute silence, I scanned the area above the hatch and saw more barrels stacked around the opening, set on loose linoleum-tiled flooring. Glass-block windows flooded the area with light, and enormous stainless-steel appliances lined the walls. A waft of stale, moldy air hit me, causing my nose to itch.
“It’s like an old kitchen,” I whispered to Braden. “Help me up.”
“Come on, guys,” he called to the others. “We’re going in.”
“What the fuck?” Nick grumbled. “This is disgusting.” He glanced around the dirty crawlspace with a grimace.
“Don’t be a pussy,” Braden shot back. “Just get in here.”
Kaitlin sent a worried glance my way. She wasn’t the most athletic or agile, and it was clear this part of the mission was not her favorite.
“It’s fine, Kaitlin,” I reassured her. “Just climb on one of those barrels and hoist yourself up.”
“I’ll help you,” Braden added.
With a nod, she crept farther into the crawlspace.
In no time, the four of us pushed our way through the grain shoot and into the kitchen. Braden was the last to pull himself up, being the tallest. And, okay, the most muscular.
The sour smell of mildew thickened the air, and I wished we had bandanas to wrap around our faces. But I was quickly distracted by the abrupt throwback to an earlier time period. The interior decor was like a show from the sixties, or earlier. The space was mostly empty, but the remains of high-volume food production were all around—huge silver appliances and sinks along the back, a conveyor for sliding trays along, and thick white doors with rounded edges and silver handles for walk-in refrigeration.
The Shuttered Ward Page 4
