“It’s just the old pipes or the wind outside,” I said.
“No, that.” Slowing, she pointed to red splatters on the wall.
As we got closer with our lights, the splatters turned to swirls of spray-painted letters. We aimed our phones along the length of wall that led to a dark stairwell, revealing the full extent of the graffiti.
It read, “Help Us”.
I sucked in a breath as I stared at the creepy faded words, reminding myself we weren’t the only ones intrigued by this place.
“Shit. That’s freaky.” Kaitlin choked on her words.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s just from teenagers who broke in before us. It’s old. Probably from before they boarded the place up, so…”
Kaitlin stared at the entryway to the stairwell, and I followed her gaze.
More red spray lettering jumped out at us as if in warning.
RUN!
The warning outlined in bold graffiti shot terror through my soul. The timing was cruel. I’d just mustered enough courage to climb the dark stairs to the first floor of the ward when I saw the word ‘RUN’. Somehow, that one word held enough power to make me reconsider my plan to climb. Instead, I wanted to turn on my heels and follow its command in full flight.
But I fought my natural instinct to get out of the abandoned, condemned building, taking a moment to regain my composure.
“That scares the shit out of me. Not gonna lie.” I turned to Kaitlin with a smirk.
She didn’t smile back. She stood frozen in her spot with her head shaking back and forth as terror poured from her eyes. “I can’t go up there,” she murmured. “It’s a warning, Grace. We need to listen to it.”
“Kaitlin. It’s graffiti,” I sighed. “If it was blood or zombified patients coming after us, I’d probably feel differently. But this is just some old vandalism by drunk teenagers. Don’t let it spook you.”
“I just have a bad feeling,” she said. “And you always say I should listen to my gut.”
“Yeah, but that’s not your gut,” I added. “It’s you being a puss…”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” she blurted as I teased her.
I grabbed her hand, then tugged her onto the stairs with me. We climbed to the first landing. A large arched door led to the outside, but the blocked-out window proved it was boarded tight. We turned and went up the next set of stairs where another aged door with a metal handle and a small square window waited for us. It was as if it were ready to lead us into the first floor of the ward.
I glanced up the following flight of stairs, then noticed they were enclosed in tightly woven chain-link fencing. The cage-like feel sent shivers through me, and I wondered why they would fence in the passage through a stairwell. I pivoted toward the old, heavy wooden door, then reached for its handle.
With a bump from the side of my body, the door opened, sending a stagnant musk stink into our noses, making my lips itch. We stepped into the wide corridor, the vast length of it intimidating. Dusty light crept through any crevices left at the edges of the boarded-up windows. Just enough of it glowed at the far end of the hall to illuminate a lone object. A single beam of light cast upon it in its silent alcove of darkness.
“Holy crap,” I whispered. “That looks like an old-fashioned wheelchair.”
Water pooled on the broken tile floor, dripping from the sagging pipes above. Sounds of droplets splashing in shallow puddles echoed through the hall, blending with the sound of our heavy breathing.
“Let’s go up to the next floor,” Kaitlin said. “Maybe it’s less gross.”
We backed up into the stairwell again. At the top, I pulled the solid door shut to seal in, or block out, the decomposing sight of the building. Then we took a few steps up in the caged-in stairwell. As we climbed, I looked down between the fencing through the center shaft that led all the way to the basement. The fencing was likely a safety precaution in case someone fell over the railing. I poked my fingers into the small links, noticing the inability to gain traction to climb.
I blinked my eyes slowly in thought. As I opened them, an image flashed in front of me, causing me to jump back.
“What is it?” Kaitlin cried, sounding startled.
“It’s a suicide cage,” I said. “To stop people from jumping.”
“How do you know that?” She gazed down the center of the stairwell into the darkness at the bottom.
I wasn’t sure, actually. Maybe a movie or a book I once read. But clear as day, it was a suicide cage. Its one purpose was basic and unapologetic.
I shrugged, continuing to climb to the next floor of the Excited Ward. My heart pounded in my ears as I stepped toward a heavy door with a metal handle, identical to the one below it. I turned to Kaitlin. When she nodded, I pressed the handle down and pushed the door with my body. After some initial stubborn resistance, the door squeaked on its hinges, sending the sound of lost, screaming souls straight through us.
Kaitlin grabbed my arm. She squeezed her fingers deep until it felt like I would bleed. “Stop,” she hissed. “It’s too loud.” And she reached for her ears to block the sound.
My nerve endings tingled all over as a shudder of fear quaked through me. “It’s just the door hing…” But my words were cut short by a blast of wind that felt like a stampede of souls bursting past us to escape to their freedom. Some of the gusts seemed to move right through me, leaving me breathless.
I turned to Kaitlin, whose face had turned ghostly white, and she mumbled words on repeat.
“2352362352362,” she whispered.
“What are you saying?” My voice choked in my throat as I heard the muffled numbers.
They were the same numbers that entered my mind back in the hospital. A string of taunting numerals that tormented me deep in my bones.
“Stop it,” I growled through clenched teeth. “Be quiet,” I snapped.
Pupils blown wide, she silenced her relentless chanting. But she reached for her ears again, then pressed her hands against them, body rocking. “I want to get out of here,” she begged.
The numbers repeated in my mind like a digital ticker on the stock market. I squeezed my eyes shut to try to clear them out of my head. “Okay. Let’s get out of here,” I agreed.
We turned back toward the stairwell, panic-stricken, as a surge of flapping filled the caging from below, creating a mind-shattering barrage of clanging metal and thunderous pounding. A black blur swiped past Kaitlin’s head and flew up the stairs. She swatted at is as another shot straight for my face and then twisted direction, bombing higher.
“Bats!” Kaitlin pushed against me as a whir of black clouds filled the stairwell and shivered with chaos all around us. “Millions,” she screamed.
“Quick,” I blasted. “Up the stairs.”
I grabbed her and we raced higher to the next floor. But the bats were faster, swarming around us from every direction.
“In here!” I pushed the heavy door of the third floor open, swatting at the black frenzy, and we rushed through, slamming it behind us.
Panting into the decaying corridor, we bent and held our knees. As I caught my breath, I lifted my head, scanning our surroundings. Peeling paint hung from every wall and chunks of ceiling fell, dangling, from above. Light filled the hall through large, lead glass, too high up to require boarding.
The light was so bright, I squinted my eyes to narrow slits. And then, in the haze of my panic and the shadows of my closing lids, I saw her.
Although this time, she wasn’t hanging from a tree.
She was waving for us to come closer.
Her dark shawl covered her shoulders and ran down the sides of her floor-length skirt, filthy at the bottom hem from dragging endlessly along the dirty ground. A gray frock covered her as a top layer, and its torn pocket stole my attention. A black ink stain spread out on the fabric. It resembled a huge, creepy spider, making my hair stand on end.
As if she knew us, her expression brightened, and she waved for us to come
closer.
Kaitlin grabbed my arm. “A ghost.”
“No,” I replied with certainty. “She’s real.” I took a few steps closer, hearing my feet crunch on chunks of fallen plaster from the ceiling.
Keeping my eyes on her, I inched closer, pulling Kaitlin along with me.
Kaitlin resisted, her feet firm in one spot. “I’m not going any closer. Who the fuck is she?”
I stared at the girl as feelings of familiarity flooded me. It was like a dream or more deja vu. The expression in her eyes proved she knew us. And somehow, it felt like I knew her, too, like a long-lost friend I hadn’t seen for years.
“It’s in our heads, Kaitlin,” I whispered. “Our sixth sense. The mystery of this place is messing with our brains, flashing images of something we’ve seen somewhere else. I don’t know. It’s the only explanation.”
She refused to take a step closer. “No. You said it yourself. She’s real.” Her voice cracked.
I stared at the vision of the girl and she moved out of view behind an arch in the hall. “I mean she’s real, like in our minds.” I pulled gently on her arm. “Please. I just want to see what’s down the hall. Please.”
“Grace, I’m scared.”
“Me too.” I tugged at her again. “But you feel it, too I know you do. We can’t turn back now.”
She inched her feet along the floor, scuffing through the dusty debris. Relief coursed through my veins as Kaitlin joined me again, and I turned my full attention to the archway.
We walked through the hall passing several doors, one after another, along both sides. Each door had a small, cross-shaped window in the center. My eyes darted to the windows of each door as I attempted to see into one, but the fogged glass, covered from years of soot, made it impossible. I resisted my temptation to stop and open one for fear of losing my connection with the girl up ahead of us. She’d led us this far, and I had to keep my focus on the exact location where she stepped out of sight.
One more archway and another set of doors with cross-shaped windows, and we moved closer to the exact location where the girl had been. I studied the floor for markings of her footsteps or drag marks from her long skirt, hoping to follow her trail. Instead, my ears perked up in response to a sound coming from just beyond the arch.
I sucked my breath in and held it, listening for any more sounds. Kaitlin froze next to me and she stared, waiting to see what I would do next.
I leaned forward to see past the side of the archway. A door was nestled into the corner, hidden by the architecture. My eyes widened as I stared at Kaitlin. The end of the hall was just ahead with an alcove to the right—likely another stairwell. Taking a deep breath, I noticed the door was slightly ajar. I swallowed hard.
The door was different from the others. It didn’t have a small, cross-shaped window but instead had a full-sized glazed one that let the light in but was impossible to see through. Chipped, faded lettering clung to the glass and read, ‘Staff Only’. I reached for the brass doorknob, then pushed it farther open.
I searched the room for the girl, but she was nowhere to be seen. Vanished into thin air.
“She’s gone,” I whispered to Kaitlin as she inched along behind me.
“You sound disappointed,” she murmured as she checked all around.
“It’s just weird,” I said as I stepped into the room.
An aged wooden desk sat in the middle with an old, bent-framed metal fan perched at the edge. A swivel chair with wheels lay on its side by the desk, broken. Another wooden chair sat in front of the desk, as if waiting to be disciplined by an angry principal.
“It’s an office,” I said. “Like, for the psychiatrist, maybe. I bet the patients would sit there, and the shrink would try to figure out why they were crazy.”
“That sucks,” Kaitlin mumbled. “How would anyone not seem crazy in here? They’d lose their minds just from being held hostage. And whatever went on in here would only make them crazier.”
“And how do you convince someone you’re not insane, when they already believe you are?” I stepped around the desk to the windows, scanning outside along the back of the building. “And there’s nothing out there. Just woods. Total isolation.” A feeling of terror brewed in my gut. “I’d go crazy if I ever got trapped in here.”
I backed away from the windows toward Kaitlin, noticing yellowed papers sticking out from the top drawer of the desk. My feet carried me to it in two swift steps, and I jimmied the drawer open. It stuck on its tracks after opening a few inches, and I yanked harder until it came farther out.
Old, moldy notepads with ‘Blackwood’ written on top were strewn around the drawer amongst broken pencils. At the side of the drawer was a small cracked-leather booklet. I pulled it out to examine it.
“What is that?” Kaitlin stepped closer.
“I don’t know.” I opened the binder and found a few loose sheets within—sheets from the notepads, only these ones had writing on them.
I took the one from the top, studying the nearly illegible script. It had a name at the top. And a date. The middle had a short sentence, like orders. Then a smear of a signature at the bottom.
“It looks like an old-fashioned prescription,” I said as I stared at it more closely, trying to read the scrawl. “Em…Emma Gr…Emma Grangley,” I said, sounding out the possible letters. “It’s written for someone named Emma, I think.” I tried to read the middle part. “Unruly. Defiant. Uncontrollable. Immediate action, it says. Orb…orbital.” I faltered on my pronunciation. “Orbital lob…lob-something. I can’t read it.”
“Orbital lobotomy,” Kaitlin whispered, horrified. “It’s a prescription for a freakin’ lobotomy, Grace!”
I dropped the book and the paper like they were venomous. My vision went blurry as the room closed in on me. Every part of my body started to sweat as my breath moved in and out of me faster than I could control.
A full-blown panic attack.
“Help me!” The words exploded in my brain, causing me to jump.
“What is it, Grace?” Kaitlin searched me wildly.
Then she heard it, too
“Help me,” the voice said, breaking all around us, and we flew for the door to escape.
Chapter 11
Escaping from the Excited Ward was our primary focus as terror ripped through our souls. The harrowing sound of Emma Grangley calling for our help rattled me to my core. I was sure it was her. There was no doubt in my mind. She needed us to save her. But we were powerless.
Sadness saturated me as I realized I couldn’t help her. It was too late. The weight of grief bore down on my shoulders, making them slump. I pictured her face in my mind. Her laughter filled my memories, and her devious, whimsical nature made me smile. She was a free spirit, pushing back on the rigid rules of society. But society pushed back and punished her.
How did I know that?
My focus returned with a loud-pitched hum.
“This way,” Kaitlin screamed. “Grace, come on!” She yanked me out of the office toward the stairwell beside it.
Blinking, I responded to the adrenaline that shot through my veins. Pure terror surged in my chest, and I ran with Kaitlin. We flew down the caged stairwell to the floor below.
“To the basement,” she yelled. “Hurry!”
We raced down more steps, but then the stairwell was blocked off by metal fencing secured by padlocks and chains.
“We’ll have to go through there.” I pointed to the door that led into the first-floor wing. “If we run to the other end, we’ll find the stairwell we originally came up through.”
We kicked at the door, trying to push it open. A surge of cold air burst at our backs, forcing us through the opening. We hurried along the dimly-lit corridor, illuminated only by the light that poked through the tops of the boarded windows. Our feet splashed through puddles as the sound of dripping water echoed louder than physically possible—our senses piqued to overload.
Avoiding areas of pooled water, we skirted
along the sides of the dilapidated hallway, passing canisters of debris and piles of broken furniture. I hopped over a heap of rotted burlap bags, then missed my landing, slipping across slimy mold on the floor. Grabbing the handle of a door for stability, I regained my balance only to fall again as it swung open. I held the handle to keep myself from face-planting and then stood, staring into a laboratory of some kind.
“Don’t stop,” Kaitlin cried as she continued down the hall as fast as she could.
But I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the room no matter how hard I tried. Stainless-steel machines lined the walls, with round glass gauges all over the fronts and wires hanging from the sides. An oversized metal tub filled the center of the room. Water overflowed from the basin as drops from the ceiling splashed into it. A headboard of temperature gauges and other implements stood over the tub while long straps hung from the sides. Metal fasteners at the ends of the restraints, rusting in the wetness on the floor, created red streaks on the tile.
I stepped back in horror. “What the hell?” My voice echoed in the room, and I turned on my heels. I ran to catch up to Kaitlin who was already at the end of the hall.
“Hurry up,” she shouted. “Grace!” Her voice cracked in terror.
I barreled through the corridor, splashing in the puddles, not caring about what I might disrupt or how I might get soaked. I just needed to get out of there. Immediately.
I crashed into an old, broken wheelchair, stumbling around its rattling, rotting carcass. With every attempt to break myself away from it, it seemed to be in my way more. I finally kicked it across the floor and ran to Kaitlin.
She pulled the door open, and we flew into the stairwell. Taking two or three steps at a time, we barreled down toward the basement. The red spray paint graffiti welcomed us back and reminded us again. “RUN.”
And we did.
We ran as fast as we could toward the storage room we’d originally entered through. The white door with eight small window panes remained open, waiting for us and we wasted no time accepting its invitation.
The Shuttered Ward Page 9
