DON’T GO ALONE

Part One

By Sean Lennon

          Luke Barnes scribbled words on the pad in his lap, unaware that the doctor had even walked into the room.  Doctor Murdock walked closer, making sure that his shoes clopped on the tiled floor.  Yet, the patient still did not acknowledge the presence.  He continued to write his sentence over and over on the paper as the doctor noticed.  Once the page was filled with letters, Luke would tear the page off the page and start all over with the plain white paper.

            “Good morning Luke.  How are you today?” the doctor asked, still receiving no response from his patient.  Murdock leaned forward, staring into the face of the silent teen.  The boy’s eyes focused on the paper as he wrote his main thought.  And he was mouthing something that the doctor could not understand.  Murdock looked down and read the page.  The three words written numerous times screamed the mystery that covered Luke Barnes:

DON’T GO ALONE

            “Don’t go where alone?” Murdock asked the patient, “What does this mean, Luke?  What happened to you out there?”  Luke did not answer.  Murdock adjusted his glasses and turned back to the door of the room.  He took a step forward to leave and was surprised by the sound of the chair that Luke sat on being moved backward fast.  Murdock spun around in time to see Luke springing from the chair and lunging at the doctor.

            Luke grabbed handfuls of the doctor’s white coat and slammed him up against the wall next to the door.  Murdock looked into the recently semi-comatose patient and saw pure anger in his eyes.  He wondered what he had said that made him react this way.

            “Luke, calm down!  It’s me, Doctor Murdock.  I’m not going to hurt you.”

            “Not you, them,” replied the patient.  His voice had become scratchy from the lack of use.

            “Who?”

            “THEM!  The ones in the hospital.  They’re dead!  They’re all dead!”  Luke shouted at the top of his lungs.  Murdock knew that if he continued, the guards would hear and come running.  They would only end up hurting Luke and he knew that whatever Luke had been through before showing up on the side of a road, he had been caused enough pain. 

            “Luke, relax.  No one is dead.  Everyone here is okay.” Murdock tried to say in a calm tone, but the grip on his coat tightened the tie loop around his neck.  The doctor pulled at Luke’s hands in an attempt to release him.  Luke only gripped the doctor’s coat harder, making it impossible to be freed.

            “Not……here.  Over there!  Where they died!  Where they were murdered!  They never left.  It’s true!  It’s all true!” 

            “Tell me, Luke.  Tell me what happened to you.”

            Luke gritted his teeth at the doctor.  His eyes bulged with the thought of reliving the terror that he had gone through.  While he paused, Murdock managed to fish out the hypodermic needle that contained a sedate amount of muscle relaxer.  He plunged the needle into Luke’s hip and pressed down on the plunger.  Luke’s body seized up for a moment and then his limbs became jelly.  Luke crumpled to the floor and sobbed.

            “No, I don’t wanna go back.  Don’t take me back.  They’ll kill me too.”

            “Who, Luke?  Who did this to you?”

            “The ones in the hospital.  They killed them.  We didn’t believe it, but it’s true.  They’re still there.  All of them.”

            “Who killed them?  What hospital?”

            “Saint Anthony’s!  The dead ones killed them!”

            “Start from the beginning, Luke.  Tell me everything that happened so I can help you.”

            “No, please.  I don’t want to remember.  Please, no.”  But Luke’s mind was already flashing back to the night that he had tried so hard to forget.  The night that he and four others paid a visit to Saint Anthony’s hospital in Green Grove, New Jersey.

                                                *                      *                      *

            “We’re going where?” Amy asked Charlie.  She didn’t like the answer that she had just heard.  It was a typical Saturday night for the gang and as usual they all got into the Ford Explorer owned by her boyfriend, Charlie.  They always ended up at a new bar or club in Belmar and Neptune, New Jersey. 

            It was the Sunday of Fourth of July weekend and the five college sophomores were spending the holiday near home in Union City, New Jersey.  The weather had started out gloomy, but after lunch the sky had cleared up completely.  Rather than waste the entire day, Charlie, Tommy, and Lucas gathered together to make plans for the rest of the day.

            “I wanna find a new place.  No clubs tonight, I’m still hung over from last night, man.  I drank WAY too much,” Tommy said.  Tommy Lang was the gang’s boozehound.  Wherever you saw Tommy, you were sure to find a party with lots of alcohol.  Yet, the others were surprised by the professionalism he radiated while working.

            “Well, everyone’s at the beaches so that’ll be over crowded,” Lucas added.

            “What about the Boardwalk?” Tommy suggested.

            “Um, what about no?  The boardwalks are right next to the beaches, dumb ass.  Hey how about Atlantic City?  A little gambling never hurt!” Charlie Copeland answered.

            “I don’t think so.  Losing money like water isn’t as fun,” Lucas replied.

            “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Charlie shouted, “Lucas, you still reading those Weird NJ magazines?”  Charlie waved his hands around, excited.  His Giants football windbreaker made noise and flopped uncontrollably.

            “Um, yeah, why?”  Lucas Barnes was the film major that everyone knew would made it some day in Hollywood.  Since elementary school, Lucas had a fondness for writing little stories and watching movies.  Weird NJ was a magazine that focused on all the haunted houses and bizarre, spooky locations in New Jersey.

            “Let’s go check out one of those places!” Charlie said, jumping to his feet and spreading his arms outward, “Go back to your house and bring one!  We can take the girls and really freak them out!”

            “Yeah!” Tommy chimed in.  “That’s a great idea!”

            “Um, ok.  Hang on, I think I have the latest copy in my car.”  Lucas got up and walked outside to the front of the house where his Red Civic sat.  Opening the back door, he fished through the small pile of items on the seat.  Under two videotapes filled with movies, an Entertainment Weekly issue, and the weekly copy of Hollywood Reporter lay the latest issue of Weird NJ.  Lucas slid it out from under everything and closed the car door behind him.  He went back into the house and tossed the issue onto the kitchen table in front of Tommy and Charlie.  Charlie swiped it and began flipping through, looking for something that caught his eye.  After a few minutes and several dozen pages, Charlie’s eyes lit up.  He planted the magazine in the center of the table for the other two friends to see.  Then he pressed a finger hard onto a picture that had grabbed his interest.

            “This is the place!”

                                                *                      *                      *

                        Jerry Murdock had been at the Hamilton Psychiatric Facility for only four days now.  Yet, he had felt right at home in the isolated building that was only three miles from the Jersey Shore.  The staff had been very welcoming and helpful in showing him where everything was stored.  His supervisor, Doctor Feldman, had even assigned him an assistant.  Jesse Alexander was eager to earn points for her medical school.  She was constantly finishing things before Jerry could even request they be done.  He felt lucky to be here.  And his first official patient there, Lucas, proved a challenge.

            Murdock walked into his office and sat down at the cluttered desk that he called his own.  He picked up the phone and dialed information.  After two rings he received help.

            “Yes, I was wondering if you could help me.  I’m looking to find out about a hospital by the name of Saint Anthony’s in New Jersey?  Would you be able to tell me where it’s located?”  Murdock could hear the operator tapping the keys quickly, searching for the hospital that Lucas Barnes had mentioned.

            “I’m sorry sir.  I would need more information.  Do you have a specific county?”

            “Well, I’m in Monmouth County.  Is there any hospital by that name there?”  There was more typing and seconds later, the operator responded again.

            “I’m sorry, sir.  I’m not showing a listing for a Saint Anthony’s Hospital.  Are you sure it’s in that county?”

            “I’m pretty sure,” Murdock told her while running his eyes through Lucas’ profile.  He found what he was looking for fast:

                        “…patient was found on side of Route 16 in Green Grove.”

            “What about in Green Grove?”

            “No, I’m sorry sir.  I don’t have any listing at all.  Are you sure of the name?”

            “I guess not.”  Murdock was puzzled now.  He was excited at first by the mention of the hospital from Lucas.  But now, he was wondering if Lucas had made it all up.  He thanked the operator and hung up.

            Just then, Jesse walked into Murdock’s office.  Jerry looked up, relieved by the appearance of his semi-attractive assistant.  He smiled and swiveled his chair around to face her.

            “Excuse me doctor, would it be okay if I called it a night?” she asked.

            “Oh, sure.  It’s getting dark, I don’t want you out there alone too late.”

            “Thank you.  See you tomorrow,” Jesse said.  She put on her coat and gathered her things into her briefcase.

            “Um, before you go, maybe you could help me with one little thing,” Jesse looked up at Jerry and waited for him to finish what he was saying, “Where could I go if I was looking for a place that wasn’t listed in the phone book?”

            “Uh, you could try the Internet.  Do you have a name of the place or is it an address?”

            “No, I was looking for another hospital in the area.”

            “You’re not thinking of leaving here already are you?” Jesse joked.  Murdock threw her a smirk in reply.

            “No, I’m just trying to find it concerning my patient.”

            “The Barnes kid?”

            “That’s the one.  Although that’s the only one I’m treating.  But that’s besides the point.”

            “Remember, you’ve only been here four days now.  No rushing it.”

            “I know.  Does my computer have access to the Internet?”

            “It should.  You’re on the Facility’s network.  They’ve recently got a DSL connection.”

            “Great.  Thank you very much, Jesse.  Have a good night and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “Good night Doctor Murdock,” Jesse said, walking out the door.  Jerry watched her go.  Her slender legs peeking out from under the long skirt that she wore.  He found himself wondering what her thighs looked like.  Were they tanned or creamy white?  He caught himself quickly and tossed the thought from his mind.  It wasn’t something that someone of his profession should be thinking, he told himself.  Besides, he still had more research to do.  Murdock turned back to his computer and opened up his web browser.

                                                *                      *                      *

            “We’re going to the hospital!” Charlie roared in response to Amy’s question.

            “Why the hell are we driving all the way south to go to some hospital?” Trish questioned.

            “Well, it’s not just any hospital,” Lucas began explaining.  He was cut off by Amy.

            “It’s the one that will give you three your well deserved lobotomies?”

            “Um, NO.  You’ll see!”  Charlie kept it hush-hush from them.  And he made Tommy and Lucas to swear silence as well.  The group drove down the Garden State Parkway South.  But that was all that the girls in the Explorer knew about their destination.

            “This isn’t funny, Charlie.  Where the hell are we going?”

            “You’ll see.”

            “If you don’t tell me, I’m getting out of the car and hitching back home.”

            Charlie pulled the jeep into the thin shoulder and put the vehicle in park.  He waved his hand towards the door, just past his girlfriend.

            “There’s the door.  Knock yourself out.”

            “Stop being an asshole,” she replied, pouting.  Charlie knew she would never leave the jeep and threw the Explorer back into traffic.

            “I think we’re almost there,” Lucas reported, “We’re supposed to be getting off at Exit 102.  That’s the Green Grove exit.”

            The group traveled off the Parkway and onto Exit 102 where it led them down a dimmed Route 16.  Charlie followed the directions that Lucas provided from his trip to Mapquest.com.

            “No, no.  You just drove past it!” Lucas informed him.

            “What?  How did I pass it?  There’s was nothing back there?”

            “Yes there was.  I saw it quickly.”

            Charlie put the jeep in reverse and drove back a hundred yards.  Lucas pointed out the small-darkened road named Essex Road.

            “Damn.  Are you sure this is the way?” Tommy chimed in.

            “That’s what the magazine said.  Essex Road was the road that led to it.”

            “Oh man, this is gonna be creepy!” Charlie cheered.

            “What the hell are you getting us into?” Amy wondered out loud.  A few minutes later, the jeep found the leadoff from Essex and took it.  Several feet into it, their destination revealed itself.  The full moon and clear sky provided the group with some light.  Amy looked out through the windshield and saw the old decaying building that was once called Saint Anthony’s Hospital and Asylum.

            “We’re here!”

TO BE CONTINUED….

Part Two

By Sean Lennon

            “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tommy’s girlfriend, Trish said.  She and the others stood outside of the decrepit building.  It stood four stories tall with the majority of windows boarded over, due to numerous visitors tossing rocks at the glass.  The bricks that made it up were cracked and the paint on them peeled in hundreds of places.  The grass around the perimeter had grown out of control and had begun growing up the sides of the building.  Several spray-painted logos and messages surrounded the main entrance of what was once known as Saint Anthony’s Hospital. 

            “There is NO way I’m going in there.  Take me home now, Charlie,” Amy demanded.

            “Don’t give in, whipped boy,” Tommy teased.

            “Shut up,” Charlie told Tommy, pushing him away as well.  He then turned back to Amy.

            “Babe, don’t worry.  I’ve got strong flashlights and there’s no one here except us.  This will be fun.”

            “Bullshit,” Amy responded, “You don’t know what kind of creatures have taken residence in that shit hole.”

            “Creatures?” Lucas asked.

            “Animals,” Amy corrected herself, “And I take it that this was your idea?”

            “Nope, I just provided the locations.”

            “Wonderful,” Trish added.  She looked over at Tommy, who was smiling from ear to ear while staring at the grim building.  She leaned over and slapped him on the shoulder.  He flinched and threw her an angry look.

            “Come on!  Stop being such women.  Nothing is going to happen other than us guys spooking you,” Charlie said, trying to convince his girlfriend.

            “No, Charlie.  I’m getting back in the jeep and I’m going to sit there until you grow up and realize that this haunted house stuff is immature and ridiculous.”

            Charlie looked at Tommy and Lucas and shrugged his shoulders.  The other two boys raised their eyebrows and looked back at the girls.

            “Okay, that’s cool.  You stay here.  We’ll be back in a little while.”  Charlie waved the guys on and started for the main entrance of the hospital.

            “Charlie!” Amy yelled, “You get back here now!”

            “I’m going inside,” Charlie responded, “You can either stay there or join me.  I’m not wasting the whole night going to the shore club-hopping.”

            Amy and Trish were left there at the side of the road that led off of Route 16 to the hospital parking lot.  Darkness from the surrounding woods crept forward towards the jeep.  Trish opened the door of the jeep and climbed into the passenger seat.  She waited until Amy joined her before locking the doors.

                                                *                      *                      *

            Doctor Murdock watched the website download onto his monitor screen.  After fifteen minutes of searching, he had found exactly what he had been looking for.  There was a Saint Anthony’s Hospital located in the area.  The one problem was that it had been closed for forty-five years.  As for the reasoning behind it, Jerry had a start in understanding what happened to Lucas and his friends the night they disappeared. 

            The screen popped up and Murdock stared at an old article written the day before the hospital was closed.  He read it over slowly, looking to get a feel or clue of the whereabouts of Charlie Copeland, Tommy Lang, Amy Longfellow, and Trish Summers.  The Green Grove Gazette article was dated August 8, 1957.

MIDNIGHT MASSACRE AT ST. ANTHONY’S!

Saint Anthony’s Hospital was turned into a morgue

late last night when an Irish priest walked the halls murdering

thirty-seven patients and nine workers.                                    
               Father Patrick Leary, 54, walked into the lobby of the                     

hospital around 10p.m. late Tuesday night and was approached  by               
a residential nurse.  Father Leary then proceeded to remove a shotgun           
from under his long coat and shot Betty Coleman, 49.  It was then that the   
priest walked the halls, firing shots at patients and doctors alike.                   
   ‘It was like he had gone crazy,’ Doctor Loomis, 52, explained,
’He was spouting mutterings about evil being born in the hospital and that    
he was the only one that could kill it.’                                                              
Other witnesses report that the possessed priest was taken
over by ‘the devil himself’ as he walked down the hall of the East Wing of  
the hospital, shooting anyone who left their rooms.  Leary then backtracked 
and headed to the West Wing of the hospital, where he came across Melissa 
Carthwright, 5.  Witnesses report that upon sight of the young girl Leary      
stopped in his bloody tracks and fell to his knees.  The Priest then cried for  
mercy and prayed to Melissa before taking his own life in suicide.                 
            Although, no one is quite sure why Father Leary went on his     rampage, another mysterious question remains.  After the police had             removed the surviving patients and staff, no one was able to locate Melissa.

Only Melissa’s twin sister, who had stayed over to keep her sister company   that night, was found.
Any information to the young girl’s whereabouts should be
given to Green Grove authorities.                                                                     

            Murdock found the story quite interesting.  And as like any other traumatic event, the story must have brought about legends and myths concerning the priest’s true intentions that night.  What did happen to the little girl that had stopped Father Leary?  Intrigued, Murdock searched further into the mystery behind Saint Anthony’s bloody past.

            He typed the girl’s name into the search engine and hit enter.  Seconds later, three results appeared before him.  One was the article from the Gazette.  The second was a link to a site that specialized in haunted areas in New Jersey called “Eerie N.J.”  Murdock clicked on the link 

            He was immediately taken to a section of the site that told the further history of the hospital.  Jerry took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes.  Checking his watch, he saw that it was beginning to get late.  But he wanted to learn all he could before attempting to get through to Lucas again in the morning.  He stood up, walked out of his office and down the hall.  Outside, in the lobby was a soda vending machine where the doctors who worked there could be found in front of throughout the day.  Caffeine was a psychologist’s drug of choice. 

            “Working late, Doctor?” Glenna Marks asked him.  Glenna was the evening receptionist for the facility.   He had seen her twice while he was on his way home.  She would be just beginning her shift.  A kind elderly woman, Jerry found her to be a friend. 

            “Yes,” he answered, “Hoping to learn a little something about my patient.”

            “Well, good luck,” she replied.  He thanked her and was about to head back to his office and stopped.  He had gotten an idea and turned back to Glenna. 

            “Excuse me, Glenna.  But may I ask how long you’ve lived in the area?” Jerry asked her.

            “Pretty much my entire life.  Why do you ask?”

            “Well, my patient has mentioned a hospital that’s been closed down for over forty years.  I just wondered if you heard or knew anything about it?”

            “You must be talking about the Saint Anthony Hospital.”

            “Yes, how did you know?”

            “Well,” she laughed, “It’s something of a tourist attraction here.  Kids are always talking about it being haunted and that satanic rituals were performed there years after it was closed down.  I don’t know the details but I do know that the local police normally patrol the area because of teenagers going there and making a mess of things.”

            “Hmmm, thank you.” Jerry turned back to return to his research on Saint Anthony’s.  But before he reached the hall door, Glenna piped up again.

            “I may be an old biddy and all, but I know when to leave well enough alone.  There are some things that should be left alone and even though curiosity can get the better of us.”

            “Why do you say that?” Murdock questioned the receptionist.

            “Because I see that curious cat in your eyes.  Just listen to my advice.  If you do go, don’t go alone.  You’re a good soul, Doctor.  I’d hate to see another one lost because of that place.”

            Murdock’s brow creased.  He found that Glenna knew more about the hospital than she was letting on.  The mystery behind the haunted spot was pulling him in further and further.  The more he looked into it, the more questions he had.  It was going to be a long night, he told himself.

                                                *                      *                      *

            Charlie, Tommy and Lucas walked up the steps to the double door entrance of the hospital.  Each boy had a heavy-duty flashlight that Tommy had taken from his father’s garage.  On the doors were two large padlocks, keeping out any trespassers.  The doors, themselves, were old and termite ridden.  Also, someone by the name of Rick had written that he had been there several years before.

            “Damn, this place is creepy.”  Tommy handled the top padlock. 

            “What’s the matter, chicken?” Charlie said, instigating.

            “Hell no.  I’m in.  But how do we get in?”

           
Charlie and Tommy looked around the entrance for a stick large enough to pry the doors open but Lucas found that one of the windows to the left of the porch was not boarded up.  He leaned off of the entrance’s porch grabbed hold of the windowsill.

            “Hey you two, over here.”  Charlie and Tommy looked over and joined Lucas in climbing into the window.  Lucas was the first one in, thanks to the others.

            He turned the flashlight on and swung the beam back and forth, searching for anything spooky.  He found himself in what appeared to be a staff bathroom.  And his nose seconded the fact.  Grime and dirt covered the walls and under that, on the wall where a couple of urinals once were, there was a dark red pentagram.  He found it normal, considering part of the hospital’s creepy past.  But the one thing that made him uneasy the most was the total darkness that hid beyond the opened door, leading out into one of the main halls.

            “What do you see?” Charlie asked Lucas, while trying to climb into the window.

            “It’s just a little bathroom,” Lucas responded.

            “Ugh, I should have known from the shit smell.”

            “Hurry up and help me,” Tommy said from outside.  The two boys grabbed his wrists and pulled him in with them. 

            “Can we please leave now?” Lucas said from under his hand.  The smell was making him nauseous.  Charlie and Tommy agreed and they moved on, into the hall. 

            “Holy shit,” Lucas whispered.  Halfway into the hall, he had stopped short.  His friends peered over him to see what caused him to halt.  There on the opposite wall of the hallway were streaks of blood leading to the left.  And above the marks, the words HELP US were spray-painted.

             “Are those handprints?” Tommy asked.

            “They look like it,” replied Lucas.

            “Damn, this is cool.”

            “Shut up, Charlie.”  Lucas slowly moved further into the hallway, with his friends close to his back.  He turned to the left and shone the flashlight down the hall.  The blood streaks continued all the way down to the very end of the wall where the hall turned right and vanished.  At the turn of the hall, someone had written COME PLAY with an arrow pointing towards where the hall led.  Lucas looked back at his friends and raised his eyebrows at them.

            “Should we?” he asked them.

            “Let’s go for it,” Charlie answered.

                                    *                      *                      *

            “I have no idea why I’m still with him,” Amy wondered out loud.

            “Because he’s on the football team?” Trish said in an attempt to answer.

            “Still, he treats me like shit and he’s got no smarts in that thick head of his.” 
            “He’s not the only one without smarts then,”

            “What?” Amy said, turning to Trish.  The comment was heard but was not believed. 

            “Well if he treats you like crap then why are you still with him?  If I were you, I’d be long gone.”

            “Oh really?  And Tommy is the ultimate boyfriend?  Mister boozer.”

            “No, Tommy isn’t boyfriend of the year but I get what I need from him.”

            “Wake up.  Sex isn’t what life’s about.”

            “But giving blowjobs and kissing ass to become popular is?”

            “Fuck you.” Amy turned back to look at the building and saw that the boys were gone.  “Where the hell did they go?” she asked.

Something small hit the roof of the jeep.  Both girls jumped at the sound.  Amy gritted her teeth and rolled down the driver side window.

            “Very fucking funny, Charlie.  The jokes are over, now get back in here and take me home.”

            “I don’t think that was them,” Trish said.

            “What was it, a ghost?  I don’t think so, Trish.  They may have sucked you into all this Blair Witch bullshit but not me.”

            Then something large hit the hood of the jeep.  Both girls spun straight in their seats.  There was a huge dent in the hood, yet neither of them had seen anything land.  It was as if an invisible fist smashed down on the hood.

            “Did you see anything?” Trish questioned Amy.  Amy shook her head no.

            “Still want to stay here?”  Again Amy shook her head no.

            “Then let’s get the hell out,” Trish said, reaching for the door handle.

                                    *                      *                      *

            Doctor Murdock waited as the printer on his computer slowly printed out a chronological chart on the history of Saint Anthony’s Hospital.  What he had learned so far had him pulled in hook, line and sinker.  But he was a psychologist, a scientist.  There was a rational explanation for everything.  Yet the history on the hospital was enough to make anyone wonder.

            The sheet was released from the printer and landed on top of his desk.  Murdock picked it up and continued reading.

          June 18^th 1940- Saint Anthony’s Hospital is built.  Three construction workers are killed in an accident involving the finishing touches on the roof of what later becomes the East wing.

                February 10^th 1942- The hospital has a West Wing added with a floor dedicated to the mentally ill. 

                February 17^th 1942- One of the patients in the west wing escapes his locked room and proceeds to brutally rape and then murder his female next-door neighbor with a screwdriver taken from the maintenance closet.  The screwdriver is later found fully inserted in her rectum.  More staff is soon brought on.

                August 8^th 1957- Father Patrick Leary appears at the door of the hospital and for forty minutes goes on a killing rampage.  He murders thirty-seven patients and nine staff members.  He then stops at the sight of 5 year-old Melissa Carthwright.  Leary then shoots himself in the head.  After the incident, no one can find Melissa.  The hospital is shut down two days later.  Melissa is never found.

                May 23^rd 1972- Local police raid the closed down hospital and find a satanic cult, consisting of 14 members.  After arresting all cult members, police search the floors and find, besides dozens of sacrificed fowl and pets, the bodies of two teenage girls.  No identification of the bodies was possible.

            Murdock placed the paper down on his desk, amidst the clutter.  He knew why Lucas Barnes was found on Route 16.  It was a quarter of a mile from where the hospital was located, according to the website.  But he knew better than to think that the dead roamed the halls of the hospital.  Once you die, the synapses in your brain cease.  No brain activity meant no body activity.  There was only one answer for the question that everyone in Monmouth County was asking.  Lucas’ friends had gotten lost in the maze-like hospital and died of fright.  Murdock would have to talk to Lucas in the morning but one thing refuse to leave his mind.  The possibility of going to the hospital and finding those kids himself.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

Part Three

By Sean Lennon

            “What the hell is that?” Tommy asked, pointing into the room that he stood outside of.  The other two guys walked over to see what he was talking about.  Lucas and Charlie poked their heads around Tommy and saw what it was that made him sound nervous and scared. 

            Inside the room, there were two stripped beds, one on either side.  The room appeared to be one of the patient rooms.  Along the floor were paint chippings from the ceiling and the walls of the room as well as pieces of broken wood and a bunched roll of what once was white bed sheets. 

            “Um, those are beds, dildo,” Charlie replied.

            “No, asshole, that.”  Tommy pointed to the far left corner of the room, past one of the beds.  Lucas moved his light over to where Tommy was looking.  In the corner was a large wooden chair.  On the arms and legs of the chair were leather straps.  On the arms and at the top of the chair were dark brown stains.

            “Damn that’s creepy.”

            “Go sit in it,” Tommy told Charlie.

            “Fuck you, you go sit in it.”

            Lucas ignored the two and walked into the room.  As he slowly headed for the chair, Tommy and Charlie stopped bickering.  They stood silently, watching Lucas intently.  Lucas stopped just in front of the chair and stared at it.  He wondered just what exactly happened in this room the night Father Leary showed up at the front entrance. 

            “Dude, I wouldn’t sit in the chair if I was you,” Tommy mentioned.

            “Let’s keep going,” Lucas said, turning back around to his two friends.  He walked past them and back into the hall.  They turned right and continued down the hall that they had started in.  A few steps later, they reached the end of the hall.  And there, stood a metal door with a thick glass window in the upper center of it.  Charlie shone his flashlight through the window and managed to see what lie behind it, even though the window was covered in grime and dust.  He saw an old staircase leading up to the second floor. 

            “It’s the stairs,” he told the other two, “Wanna go up?”

            “Hell yeah,” Tommy answered.  He reached for the metal handle and pulled.  The door creaked slightly and barely moved.  Charlie moved Tommy to the side and yanked on the door handle.  It opened a little further.  They looked at the door and Charlie tried again.  This time he was able to swing the door open all the way.  A large cold gust of wind blew out of the stairway and right past the three boys, followed by an eerie whistling sound.

            “What the hell was that?” Lucas wondered out loud.

            “I don’t know but the girls sure are missing out on some spooky shit.”

                                                *                      *                      *

            “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Amy complained as she and Trish walked around the west wing of the hospital, looking for a way in.  They had agreed to find the boys and force them to be taken home.  But they were unable to locate the way they had gotten into the hospital.  So the girls walked around, looking for a door or an open window.  They had yet to find one. 

            “They had to have gotten in somehow,” Trish said.

            “Yeah but where?”

            “Wait, what’s that?”  Trish pointed to a set of stairs leading downward.  She aimed her flashlight at it and saw a door at the bottom of the stairs.  It was wide open.

            “They probably went in this way,” she told Amy. 

            “Hey jerks!  I want to go home.  NOW.”  Amy waited for a response to her hollering.  Yet only the darkness of the night replied.

            “They’re probably waiting for us to walk in and scare the crap out of us.”

            “Well, I’m not letting them have all the fun.”  Amy walked over to the stairs and began climbing down to the doorway.  Trish hurried over to follow her. 

            Amy jumped in the doorway with her flashlight shining inside and yelled.  Trish waited for something to jump back out at her but nothing came.  Amy looked up at Trish and shrugged her shoulders.  The boys were not there.

            “They must have gotten tired of waiting for us and went inside,” Trish assumed.

            “Then let’s go in after them.”

            “Why don’t we just wait out here?”

            “There’s no way I’m letting Charlie off the hook,” Amy told her, “He took us here to scare us.  I say we scare them before they can do it.”

            “I don’t know about that.”

            “Then you can stay here and wait for them.  I’m going in.”  Amy disappeared inside the basement entrance of the hospital.  Trish stood there for a moment, pondering the rationality of haunted houses.  Then she followed Amy in.

                                                *                      *                      *

            “Doctor Murdock?”  Murdock woke up at the sound of Jesse’s voice.  He raised his head up and looked around.  He was still in his office, with the light of the morning sun pouring through the slats of the blinds on his office window.  Jesse stood at the side of his desk with two cups of coffee in her hands.

            “Hmmm, what time is it?” he said in a groggy tone.

            “It’s 9 a.m.”

            “Oh boy,” Murdock replied.  He sat up, sore from the way he had fallen asleep on his desk.

            “Were you here all last night?”

            “Is one of those for me?” he asked, looking at the delicious breakfast pick-me-up.  Jesse just then realized that she still had the coffee in her hands and handed him one.  He thanked her and drank it down.  While he did, Jesse looked over the papers on his desk.

            “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked him.

            “Yes, I did.  Thank you for the suggestion.  I found more than enough information on the hospital that Lucas Barnes mentioned yesterday.”

            “He spoke?”

            “Briefly but yes.  I was trying to get through to him concerning his missing friends.  That was when he said that they were at the Saint Anthony’s Hospital.”

            “You mean the haunted hospital in Green Grove?”

            “You’ve heard of it?”

            “Every kid in New Jersey has heard of it.  There are rumors of it being haunted and cursed.  Some kind of big spooky history behind it.  I don’t know all the details.”

            “Well,” Murdock said, looking at all his late night research, “I’ve found enough to know why Lucas was found where he was and where his friends may be.”

            “You think the rumors of that place are true?”

            “No, it’s all just superstition and campfire tales.  But I have a feeling that we may find that they got lost in the halls of the hospital.”  The doctor searched through the clutter on his desk for something.  “I printed up a blue print of the hospital and seeing the layout, they may have gotten lost and eventually died of fright.  Ah, here it is.”  He raised a sheet up and handed it to Jesse.  She looked it over as Murdock tided himself up to look presentable. 

            “This is incredible!  But what about Lucas?”

            “Well, I plan on speaking to him this morning.  But knowing this, I may be able to break through his defenses and make major progress with him today.  But I don’t want to tell the police in case that this may be a false lead.  I need to talk to him more to solidify my assumptions.”

            An hour and a half later, Doctor Jerry Murdock walked into the room where Lucas Barnes sat, writing the same three words over and over.

            “Hello Lucas,” Murdock said, sitting down at the table in the middle of the room, across from Lucas.

            “I think I know where your friends are, Lucas.  I think I found Charlie, Tommy and the girls.”

            Lucas stopped writing on the pad and paused.  Then he began writing again.

            “No.  They’re dead too.  Just like the others.  Just like the girl.”

            Murdock sat up at the mention of the girl.  He knew that Lucas was talking about Melissa Carthwright, the girl who vanished the night Father Leary slaughtered all the patients and nurses at the hospital.  It all made sense.  Lucas and his friends had read all about the cursed history of the hospital and had believed it so much that they imagined seeing Melissa and becoming part of the curse.  He had studied the power of suggestion in teenagers and people in their twenties.  Sometimes, beliefs can become so strong that the patient will visualize themselves in the situation or fantasy and find it reality instead.

            “What girl?”

            “The girl.  The one that killed them.  The one that killed them all.”

            “How can one girl kill many people?”

            “Not her.  She only helps.”

            “You mean someone else killed your friends?”

            “They all did.  They’re all dead.  And they wants us dead too.”

            “The people in the hospital?”

            “Yes.  YES!  The hospital!  Stay away!  Don’t take me there!  Please!”  Lucas jumped up out of his chair, knocking it back to the floor.  He threw the pen and pad at Murdock and made a run for the door.  Murdock had a feeling that at the mention of the hospital, Lucas would get like this.  The guard outside the door stood strong, making sure that the lock on the door kept.  Lucas banged on it, screaming to be free and escape the fear that had consumed him. 

            “Shhhhhh, it’s okay, Lucas,” Murdock said, walking over to Lucas and gently putting his hands on his shoulders, “It’s all right.  No one is going to take you back there.  You’re safe now.”        

            And with that Lucas slowly stopped screaming and fell to the floor.  Murdock gave him something to calm him down.  Then he motioned for the guard to open the door.  Outside, Jesse waited anxiously.

            “Any progress?” she asked.

            “Yes.  But we need to do one thing before I can know that I’m right in all this.”

            “What’s that?”

            “Get your coat.  We’re going to Saint Anthony’s hospital.”

                                                *                      *                      *

            “Where the hell does this lead?”  Amy and Trish found themselves walking a long concrete hallway, under the hospital.  So far, they had walked a hundred yards with several hundred more to go from the look of it.  In their light, they could see a string of light bulbs running the length of the hallway but they had yet to find a switch to turn them on.

            The hallway was three and a half feet wide, not allowing the girls to walk side by side.  The concrete walls and floor were hard and cold.  And the breeze running through the hall from the outside made it even colder. 

            “I’m freezing,” Amy complained.

            “Maybe we should just go back outside and look for another way in.”

            “No way.  I’m going to find them and give them all a good swift kick in the…” 

            Trish looked up at Amy when she didn’t finish her sentence.  Amy stopped short, causing Trish to almost bump into her. 

            “Why did you stop?” Trish asked.

            “Don’t you see her?”

            “Who?”  Trish peeked over Amy’s shoulder, trying to see who she was talking about.  It was then that Trish saw her.  There, about thirty yards in front of the girls, stood a little brown haired girl.  Trish guessed that she was around five years old.  But the creepy possibility of running into a girl in the middle of a haunted house made her shiver.  What was she doing down here?  And in the middle of the night?

            “Excuse me?” Amy hollered, “Hello!  Little girl!”

            The girl stood silent, staring at Trish and Amy as if she were as dumbfounded to find them as they were of her.  

            “This is not good.”
            “What are you talking about?” Amy questioned her friend.

            “What the hell would a kid be doing down here in the middle of the night?  Something about this doesn’t seem right.”

            “Um, hello, she’s not wearing a sheet with two eyeholes, Trish!  There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

            “Then where the hell did she go?”  Trish pointed ahead of Amy.  Amy turned back and saw that the little girl that was in front of them had vanished.  Amy aimed her light to the end of the hall but still could not find her.

            “She probably just ran off.”

            “Then how come we didn’t hear her running away?”

            “Because maybe I was too busy arguing with you!  Let’s just get out of the basement and find these assholes.”  Amy and Trish continued their way down the cold, dark hall.

                                                *                      *                      *

            Lucas, Charlie and Tommy made their way through the hallway on the second floor.  The three walked slowly ahead to the center building, checking each room as they went. 

            “You know, this was pretty much the way that Father Leary went through the hospital that night,” Lucas said.

            “And how would you know?” Charlie asked.

            “Because they have a website that talks all about this place.  That’s how I knew about it in the first place.  The whole history to this place is really interesting.  There’s even a rumor that this place was built on an old burial ground.”

            “Yeah, just like in Poltergeist, right?” Tommy joked.

            “I’m not kidding.”

            “Whoa, check this out,” Charlie said.  The other two boys stepped through the doorway into the room that Charlie had called from.  Inside, Charlie stood over an operating table.  There were dark stains over everything in the room.  And the chalk outlines from that night in 1957 still stood out on the dark floor.

            “See?  I told you,” Lucas told them. 

            Tommy walked over to the table and looked it over.  The table was used in gynecology tests and exams.  Dried blood hung from the stirrups.

            “They said that the priest, Father Leary, killed all the patients he saw because he thought they were all possessed by evil spirits here.  And seeing how that this place was mostly used for pregnant patients, he wasn’t going to pass right by here.”

            “Dude, you’re really starting to creep me out, now.  Quit it.”  Tommy continued looking around the room and noticed something.

            “Hey Luke,” he said.

            Lucas was picking through the tools on the small thin table beside the stirrups.  He held one up to examine in the beam of his flashlight.

            “You think Father Leary used this on whoever was on this table?” Lucas asked the others.

            “Yo Luke,” Tommy said again.

            “What?”  Lucas put the tool down and turned around.  He saw Tommy walking out of the room so he followed. 

            “Where are you going?”

            “Where the hell is Charlie?” Tommy asked him.  Lucas finally noticed that Charlie was nowhere to be found.  Lucas looked into the room across from where they just were, but still no Charlie.  The two called out his name loudly but they received no reply.

            “This is not fuckin’ funny, dude.”  Tommy was becoming nervous.  There were only two beams of light instead of the previous three. 

            “He was just here.  Where could he have gone?”

            “Dude, this place is haunted, just like they said.  We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Tommy said, panicking.

            “Calm down, he’s gotta be playing with us,” Lucas told him, “Charlie!  Fun’s over, man!”

            Just then, a clattering of metal falling to the floor made the two jump from surprise.  The noise had come from the gynecology room that they had just been in.  Lucas and Tommy looked at each other and then at the doorway to the room.  Not wanting to, but needing to know what the sound was, they crept to the doorway of the room.  Lucas shone his flashlight at the floor.  There, under the stirrups was the table of tools.  It had been knocked over by someone or something.  Yet Tommy swung his light back and forth and saw nothing.  There was no Charlie, no scurrying animals, nothing.

            “What the hell knocked that over?” Lucas wondered.

            “The same thing that’s writing that message on the wall,” Tommy guessed.  The two boys looked over the stirrups to the wall behind it.  On it, words were being written in a dark red liquid.  Lucas had the scared feeling that the liquid was blood.  They stood, frightened beyond anything they could imagine, and watched the message being written.  When it was done, they still could not help but stand frozen and stare at what they knew was meant for them: ALL WILL DIE TONIGHT

TO BE CONTINUED……

Part Four

By Sean Lennon

            Charlie Copeland couldn’t help but listen to the voices in his head.  He had no idea where they came from or who they were but he was moved to do what they asked.  He walked back down the stairs that he and his friends had just ascended.  And it was all that the voices told him to do.

            “The chair.”

            He had to go back to the chair that Tommy had found earlier.  That’s where he had been told to go.  He didn’t know why but something in the tone of the voices made him believe that it would save him from the evil that he now felt running throughout the hospital.

            “The chair will save you.”

            It’s going to help me, Charlie thought.  He wanted to go back and tell Lucas and Tommy about it but he knew if he did, he’d doom himself as well as the other two.  Then, the voices would have tried saving him for nothing.

            “The chair will free you from the evil.”

            Charlie turned the corner and stopped short, surprised by the sight in front of him.  There, in the center of the hall, stood a little girl in a white sundress with yellow flowers along the hem of the skirt and sleeves.  Her long brown hair was straight and let down around her shoulders.  She stood just in front of the door that led to the room with the chair that the voices told him would be his safe haven.  The girl smiled and said nothing.  Once he was over seeing the girl who had no place being in the building, he walked towards her and the doorway. 

            The little girl looked up at Charlie and pointed into the room that he was headed to.  Charlie looked inside and saw the same exact room that he had been in before. 

“Go inside.”

He smiled back at the girl and walked through the doorway.  Yet everything in the room quickly changed as he did.  The grime on the walls vanished, covered over in a pure white paint.  It was as if a wave of cleanliness washed over everything in the room.  The room turned backwards in time to what it had originally looked like.  Charlie became scared by the impossible feat. 

He turned back to the doorway, hoping to see the little girl and the old run-down hall that he had just walked out of.  But all he saw was a sparkling clean hall.  The lights on the ceiling shined on the lime green linoleum floor.  The walls had also turned a clean white.

“What the fuck?” Charlie said to himself out loud. 

And just then, the screams and the boom of a shotgun filled the air.  He jumped from the fright.  Not wanting to for fear of what he might see, Charlie kept himself from looking out into the hall for the reason of the screams.  Instead he turned back to hide under one of the old stripped beds that had suddenly turned new.  Once he did, Charlie wished he had gone out into the hall.

Standing between the beds were a dozen people.  All of them were dead and covered in blood.  One of the people, a woman, stared at him through empty eye sockets as tears of blood ran down her pale cheeks.  A man to her side tilted his head down for a better look at Charlie.  It was then that Charlie noticed that the man was missing the back of his head.

“Oh shit.”  Charlie stumbled back.  He made an attempt to escape the room of dead people but before he could reach the hall, the dead grabbed him and pulled him back into the room.  He fought back with every inch of being but it was no use.  They threw him onto the chair and held his arms and legs down as others strapped him in.  Once he was in the chair, tightly, they stepped back.  Then the voice in Charlie’s head returned.

“All evil that walks these halls shall die.”

“Wait!  I’m not”  Charlie was unable to finish his statement before the dead people in front of him jumped forward and tore his body apart.

                                    *                      *                      *

            Murdock carried the video camera to his car in the staff parking lot.  If he was really going to visit the hospital that Lucas had gone into and lost his friends to fear in, he was going to definitely document it.  And if he was lucky, he may even find the missing kids in the maze-like halls.

            “Do you really think this is a good idea?” Jesse asked.  She followed him to the car, carrying her tape recorder.  She had hoped to make notes of the trip but when she was told that the local police would not be notified about the trip and not backing them up when they went in, she began to think that the trip was a bad idea.

            “You don’t really think that ghosts exist do you?”

            “Well, no.  But I do believe in homicidal stragglers living in buildings like that.”

            “No need to worry there,” Doctor Murdock said in a calm reassuring tone.  He opened the trunk of his car and reached under the spare tire.  When he pulled back, he revealed a gun.

            “Whoa!” Jesse stepped back.

            “It’s okay.  It’s registered and I’ve taken lessons in firing it.”

            “Why do you even have it?”

            “I’ve learned that in this line of work you can never be too careful.  A few years back, a friend of mine who was also a psychologist was stalked by one of his patients.  He was badly beaten when the patient felt scorned by him.  Ever since then, I’ve had it.”  Murdock placed the gun back, closed the trunk and went to start the car.  Jesse slowly walked over to the passenger door, thinking to herself that she was walking into a horror movie.

                                                *                      *                      *

            “Charlie!” Lucas yelled.  And just like the last several times he had called out, he received no reply.  It had been several minutes since he and Tommy had lost their friend.  Tommy began getting fed up.

            “Screw it,” he said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.  If he wants to stay here, let him.  I’m not hanging out one more minute after seeing what we did.”  Lucas was all for getting out the second he saw the blood message on the wall in front of him. 

            Tommy walked back down the hall that they had come through.  Lucas followed close behind him.  As they turned the corner to reach the door that led to the stairwell, Lucas heard something above them.  He grabbed Tommy’s shoulder and stopped.  Tommy turned his head to look at why Lucas stopped and saw that he was staring at the ceiling.  Tommy looked up as well and saw nothing.

            “What is it?”

            “I heard someone up there.”

            “Who?”

            “I don’t know.  But I heard steps.  Like someone was running in the same direction.” Lucas told him.

            “Then let’s beat whoever the hell it was to the exit.”  Tommy stepped forward to continue towards the stairwell.  Suddenly the ceiling caved in right in front of the door that they were headed for.  Lucas’s jaw dropped and Tommy quickly took a step back.  Once the debris stopped falling, the two boys saw that there was no way out from the way they came in. 

            “We have to get out of here, man.”  Tommy’s voice cracked.  Lucas knew that Tommy was now as scared as him. 

            “How?  Do we keep going back to the main building?”

            “There’s no other way, dude.  Let’s go.  Now.”  The two turned back the way they came and prayed that they would quickly find a way out.

                                                *                      *                      *

            “Where the hell did she go?” Amy asked Trish.  They stood at the end of the long hallway in the basement and found a small room with a heavy metal door that led somewhere they did not know.  Amy had tried opening the door and found she had to yank hard.  She knew a little girl would not have been able to open it on her own. 

            “I don’t know.  But I’m not liking this,” Trish replied. 

            “Oh stop being such a dork and let’s go.”  Amy walked through the doorway and found a staircase leading to the ground floor of the building.  She pointed it out to Trish and climbed up them.

            They led up to a room with industrial washers and dryers on each side.  The insides of the machines gave off a wet musty odor.  Amy was quick to cover her mouth and nose with her hand.  Trish did the same and waved her flashlight back and forth in hopes of seeing the little girl.  But there was no sign of her. 

            “Ugh, like this is any better.  The laundry room.”  Amy made her way through the mix of giant laundry baskets to the door on the opposite side.  She tried the door and it opened easily.  Trish was right behind her but had a strange feeling that something lurked in the next room.  As she slowly crept through the door, she saw that it was only the kitchen for the hospital.  The room was long as it was wide.  There were two rows of countertops in the center with several old stoves lined up on the left well with the assortment of pots, pans and dishes along the right wall.  Cobwebs blanketed everything in the room.

            “It’s getting worse every room we walk into.  This is disgusting.”

            “Well, it’s been closed down for almost fifty years.  That might be a clue to it all.”

            “Yeah, whatever.”  Amy walked through the two rows of countertops, being careful of running into any webs that would get caught up in her hair.  Trish walked over by the stacks of dishes on the right wall and closely examined one of them.  They were all covered in an inch of dust, never to be used again. 

            Suddenly one of the stacks shook slightly.  Trish moved back in fear.  She wasn’t sure if it was a stray cat or an ugly little mouse that was crawling behind it.  But either way, she was not looking forward to finding out. 

            “Stop playing around over there and let’s go,” Amy demanded.  The stack by Trish shook again, more violently this time.

            “That wasn’t me,” Trish said to her.  She put her hands up in the air and looked back at the stack that moved.  As she did, the dishes in the stack exploded.  Trish fell backwards, losing grip on her flashlight.  Amy turned away, covering her face from the flying shards.  The stack beside the exploding one also reacted.  Dishes flew across the room and shattered on the wall over the stoves.  Amy ducked and screamed.  Trish remained where she fell, searching for her flashlight.  But she soon found that she did not need it.  The stoves came to life and flames shot up two feet into the old musty air.

            “Oh my God!  Trish!” Amy screamed.  Trish was afraid to stand up in case the dishes were not finished shooting across the room.  Her eyes hurt from being clenched together, afraid of opening them and seeing something not human staring back at her.

            “TRISH!  Help me!”

            She could not hold back any longer.  Something was wrong with Amy and she had to help her.  Trish opened her eyes to see Amy hovering in the air as if someone or something was carrying her.  And she saw exactly where Amy was headed.  The flames on top of the stove did not die down.  They shot up, waiting for her friend to be engulfed by it.  But Trish was too shocked by the sight of her friend being carried by absolutely nothing.  Amy thrashed back and forth but she still was heading for the flames.  Trish had to act fast.  She found the ability to stand and rushed over to where Amy floated.  Trish reached out to grab Amy’s leg but was held back by some unseen force.  The force then catapulted Trish backwards into one of the stacks of pots.  She fell to the dirty floor with the stack falling on top of her. 

            Once she was able to clear the pots off of her, Trish stood up again, sore from the impact.  Amy was still hovering in the air, but now her head was above the high flames.  The fire licked the air around her dangling hair. 

            “Trish!” Amy screamed over and over.  Trish knew what would happen if she attempted to save Amy again.  She, too, would be hovering over the intense fire. There was nothing she could do but watch her friend die at the hands of the unknown. 

            Amy’s head suddenly shot down into the fire.  The room became filled with the horrible smell of burning hair and flesh.  And yet, Amy still screamed Trish’s name.  Trish was still unable to move as she watched the rest of Amy become engulfed in the high flames of the stoves.  Then as if a switch in her head turned on, Trish found the ability to move her legs.  She turned and headed for the door that led back to the laundry room.  And as she pulled on the door that led to the stairs going down into the long hall, Trish could still smell the burning flesh of her friend, Amy Longfellow.

                                                *                      *                      *

            Murdock and Jesse arrived at the site of the closed down building.  Jesse peered up at the structure through the windshield.  The massive building seemed to stare back at her as well as through her.  She could not help but feel a shiver down her spine. 

            “Well, here we are.”  Murdock put the car in park and stepped out, anxious to find answers to the questions that Lucas Barnes had given him. 

            “I can see why everyone thinks that this place is haunted,” Jesse mentioned.  The building looked like something out of Halloween or Friday the 13^th.  She wouldn’t be surprised if she saw someone in a hockey mask staring out of one of the upper floor windows. 

            “Trust me, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself.  And the occasional rat,” Murdock joked, “Besides, I’ll be with you the entire time.  I’m no ninety-eight pound weakling, you know.”

            “No, I didn’t mean it like that.  It’s just that stuff like this creeps me out.”

            “It’s all superstition.  Your imagination makes up that what you do not know.  Like for example, ever hear of the War of the Worlds event?  Half of the state of New Jersey ran for the hills because they only heard the show on the radio.  If they had seen it on television, they would have calmly sat in their homes and had a laugh.  But because they did not see that it was all a hoax, they believed in the invasion.  Same thing here.  You hear from other kids that this place is haunted with restless spirits when all it is, is some sounds of the building settling and some mice running through the walls.  Trust me, there is nothing to worry about.” 

            Yeah, whatever, Jesse thought.  She helped the doctor remove the tape recorder and the video camera from the trunk.  Murdock took the gun from under the spare tire and placed it under his belt and behind his back.  Closing the trunk after him, he then made his way to the front doors of the hospital.  Jesse muttered a prayer as she followed.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

Part Five

By Sean Lennon

            Murdock finished picking the lock on the front doors of the old decaying hospital.  He pulled the lock off and slowly opened the door.  Light shined in, revealing the ritual area that the cult back in the seventies had created.  He looked back and nodded for Jesse to begin filming.  Jesse plopped the camera on her shoulder and focused the lens.

            “It is August Twenty-third, at 11:45a.m.  We are entering the building that was once known as Saint Anthony’s Hospital.  This is to do with the patient, Lucas Barnes and the disappearance of his four friends.  Through several sessions with Lucas, I have found that on the night that he and his friends disappeared, they had come to this location.  I believe, due to studies concerning mass fear and hysteria, that the missing kids will be found somewhere in the walls of this building.  Myself and my assistant are here to attempt at locating them.”

            The doctor walked in and looked around at the main lobby and reception area.  The desk had been broken apart and thrown to a far corner of the room.  The floor, marked up as it was, was missing board all along the room.  Nothing but darkness stared back from underneath.  The walls were just as decrepit as the floor.  The paint from forty plus years had just about fallen all off and gaping holes made from other trespassers spotted here and there.

            “Let’s start that way,” Murdock said, pointing to the right hallway.  He grabbed the flashlight that was hooked onto his belt and turned it on.  The bright halogen beam lit up the shadows, helping the small amount of light coming in through the slats of the wooden boards on the windows.  Jesse followed the doctor through the building. 

            When they reached the first room, Murdock peered inside and found nothing but piles of trash and graffiti.  But regardless of the trash, they was no evidence that anyone had stepped foot in that room for at least ten years.  With that, he moved on. 

            The next room they came across, both Murdock and Jesse flinched at the unexpected sight of a large rat scurrying across the remains of a hospital bed.  The doctor took a deep breath and then proceeded to enter the room.  He noticed something written on the wall to the left.  Someone had spray painted the words “Enter at your own risk”.  He looked back at Jesse and pointed to it.

            “As you can see, intruders have left messages to frighten others that walk these halls.  They expect to receive humor in the fear of others, just like if someone were to hide behind a door and then jump out when someone else entered the room.  The person doing the scaring would laugh at the fright on the scared person’s face.  Why is it that someone would enjoy scaring another?  Is it the evil inside of us all?  Is it the same as seeing another person in pain or emotional suffering?  Do we all have a small amount of that which makes serial killers tick?  Through my studies, I hope to answer these questions.”

            Murdock turned on his heels to leave the room and as he did, the floorboard he stood on gave out from under his weight.  Jesse screamed and lunged for the doctor before he vanished, but all she could grab was air.  Murdock plummeted down and landed with a crash as he fell onto his side.

            “Doctor Murdock!  Are you all right?” Jesse asked him, shining her light through the jagged hole.  Murdock looked up and covered his face with his hand.

            “I’m okay, just got the wind knocked out of me.”  Murdock looked around for his flashlight and assumed that it had rolled away from him several feet.  Jesse moved her light around the doctor to see what he had fallen into.  All she could see was old storage boxes stacked three high.  Murdock guessed that he was in the records room.

            “What should I do?” his assistant asked.  Get me a drink, he thought.  His side throbbed from the fall but a few bruises was all he gained from the mishap.

            “Go to my car and get the blueprints that I had printed out from the Internet.  And hurry back, I lost my flashlight.”

            “Okay, I’ll hurry back.  Just lie still.”  Jesse took off back through the main lobby and out the door.  Murdock squinted, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness around him.

            “Come on, Jesse,” he said, wiping the dust from his face.

                                                *                      *                      *

            Trish ran as if the devil, himself, was after her.  And from what she had seen just then, she believed it to be true.  How was it that Amy was carried by air and thrown in the fires from the top of the stove?  She knew that this place was really haunted.  But now, all she worried about was getting out of there alive.

            She reached the bottom of the stairs and threw the door open with the help of her shoulder.  The door shrieked loudly.  Trish then pushed herself forward, running as fast as she could down the long concrete hall that she and Amy had first seen the mysterious little girl.  Her lungs burned from the strenuous exercise.  And yet, even though her body was screaming in pain from the running, she could not stop and take a breath.  The longer she stayed in the hospital, the more of a chance that whatever it was that killed Amy would catch up to her.   She had to get out now.

            When she knew that she was halfway through the long dark hall, she laughed to herself.  Just a little further, she thought.  A little further and she would reach the door at the other end that led to freedom. 

            That was when she tripped and fell.  The flashlight launched from her grip and flipped in the air a few times before it hit the floor with a crack.  Trish scraped her knees on the hard concrete floor as well as tearing the skin from her palms.  Her hands stung as she got back up.  But now, she was in complete darkness.  It was as if she may have well closed her eyes shut, she could not see her hands in front of her face.

            “Oh God,” she whimpered.  She needed to find her flashlight again.  She got back down on her knees and slowly crawled forward, waving her hurting hands back and forth on the floor as she went.  Going as fast as she could, Trish searched frantically for the flashlight. 

            A few steps more and her hand brushed up against the cracked plastic of the flashlight.  She prayed that it still worked.  Trish ran her hand around the handle and found the button to turn it on.  Hitting the button, she found herself still trapped in the blackness around her.

            “Come on, please work, damn you.”  She hit the button several more times but to no avail.  The flashlight was dead.  She gritted her teeth and smacked the side of the flashlight.  Just then, the beam of light shot out onto the floor and Trish gasped a sigh of relief.  She then stood up and held the light out in front of her.  But when she did, she had wished that the light had never come back on.  In front of her were about a dozen people.  And with her light, she was able to see that all of them were dead.  One of the people in the front was missing half his head, while a woman behind him had her left arm torn off her shoulder.  Several others stood silent with massive holes in their chests. 

            “No,” Trish whispered.  She had to get away from them.  She knew that these were the ones who had also killed Amy.  She turned back to head towards the laundry room but found even more of the dead standing behind her.  She was trapped.  There was no way out for her now.

            She began crying as the dead on either side began approaching her.  And the last thing that she heard was her own screams, echoing down the long hall into the darkness.

                                                *                      *                      *

            “How the fuck are we going to get out of here, man?”  Tommy was starting to panic and Lucas was unable to concentrate due to it. 

            They had made their way back to the center building on the second floor and were searching for a staircase or an open window to escape from.  So far, they were unsuccessful. 

            “This place is like a friggin maze!” Tommy yelled, “I want out of here!”

            “Yelling at me isn’t going to help us find one,” Lucas told him.  He searched the large room and found that they were in what looked like to be a day room for patients.  And just like most of the rooms they had searched, this one was stained in blood.  This must have been one of the rooms the priest went through, Lucas thought.  He noticed some holes randomly placed on the walls.  Definitely one of the rooms. 

            The two boys walked through the room to the other side where the hall continued through the East wing of the hospital.  As they reached the other end, the door, which was open, swung shut with a bang.  Both Lucas and Tommy flinched at the surprise.  Just as the door in front of them closed shut, the door that they had walked through banged shut as well.  There were only two ways out of the room and both were now blocked.

            “Oh fuck,” Tommy muttered, “We’re dead.”

            “Shut up and help me,” Lucas said, trying to pry the door in front of them open.  Tommy leaned in and pushed the door with all his might.  They pushed for a minute and realized that it was useless.  Lucas stepped back and tried of thinking of another plan out of the recreation room.  Tommy broke down and started kicking the door.

            “I haven’t done anything wrong!  Just let me the hell out!  I promise I’ll never come back again!”  He then fell to his knees and put his head in his hands.

            Lucas looked around and saw the metal chairs that littered around the long wooden table that other trespassers had used to leave their initials in.  An idea popped into his head and he hurried over to the table.  He picked up one of the chairs and felt how sturdy it was.

            “Hey Tommy, help me out over here.”  Tommy looked up and wondered what Lucas was up to.  He walked over with the stature of a man that was walking to his death.  Lucas handed him one of the chairs and gripped another tightly.

            “Okay, this building is old, right?”  Tommy nodded with a dumbfounded look.  “Well, then the walls would be old and fragile too, right?”  It then began to dawn on Tommy.

            “You think we could break our way into the next room?”

            “Exactly.  It’s our only chance.”  Lucas pulled the chair back and swung as hard as he could.  The wall crumbled under the hit of the chair.  Lucas and Tommy smiled at the small hole.  They continued hitting the wall, making the small hole a bit bigger each time.

            Tommy swung the chair into the wall and was suddenly pulled forward when two hands reached out of the hole and grabbed the chair in his hands.  Surprised, Tommy let go and fell back to the floor.  Lucas dropped his chair and stepped back.  Another pair of hands reached through the hole and one of the dead inhabitants of the hospital began climbing through the hole.

            “Holy shit,” Lucas said out loud.  He froze in his steps, unsure of what to do next.  He found out when Tommy screamed behind him.  Lucas whirled around to see Tommy being held down on the long table by several more dead who had mysteriously appeared from nowhere. 

            “Lucas!  Help me!” Tommy screamed.  There were six of the dead, holding him down with another five standing near, watching.  Lucas didn’t want to go near for the fear of being caught by them also.

            Lucas’s attention was then diverted by a high whistle from behind him.  He turned around again and saw a little girl standing there, wearing a white sundress.  She smiled at him and rocked back and forth.  Lucas was struck by the fact that the girl, who looked alive and healthy, was even in the building. 

            Lucas finally figured it out after staring at the girl for a short bit.  She was the girl from the night Father Leary ran through the hospital, killing, just like the haunted house magazine had said.  She was Melissa Carthwright.  Her ghost in front of him helped explain what had happened to that night when she had vanished from the remaining survivors.  She had died that night too.  But if that was the case, Lucas thought to himself, what had happened to her body and why was no one able to find it?

            Melissa frowned and whistled loud.  Lucas looked over his shoulder and saw that some of the dead had started walking over to where he stood.  She held her hand out with her palm facing the dead behind him.  She had stopped their approach.  Seeing this, she smiled and walked over to the door that Lucas and Tommy had tried to pry open.  Lucas remained still and watched her intently as the dead that held down Tommy did the same.

            Melissa gently placed her hands on the door and slowly pushed it open.  Lucas was surprised not only by the fact that she was able to open it but that beyond the door were the steps that were outside of the main entrance for the hospital.  It was impossible, he thought.  They were on the second floor!  Melissa looked back at Lucas and smiled.  Then she pointed outside and waited for him to walk through.  Lucas wasn’t sure whether or not it was a trick and he was hallucinating.  But then he remembered Tommy.  Lucas looked back and reached out to Tommy.  The dead around him did not release his friend.  Melissa took hold of Lucas’s hand.  Lucas looked down at her.  She shook her head no and frowned at Tommy.  Lucas knew that there was no way that Tommy would leave the building alive. 

            “I’m sorry,” Lucas said to Tommy.  Tommy screamed for his friend as Lucas walked through the door to find himself outside the hospital.  He took two steps forward and saw the night sky and the jeep off to the right of where he stood.  He was awestruck at what was happening.  Nothing seemed to make sense to him at that moment.  He turned around to see back into the room that he had just walked out of.  He could still see Tommy being held to the table by the dead of Saint Anthony’s Hospital.  The dead that were trapped inside the walls of the building till the end of time.  There was no saving their souls.  Father Leary had seen to that. 

            Tommy raised his head up to look at Lucas.  Lucas could see him screaming but the sound was gone.  And then the dead that held him to the table proceeded to devour him.  Melissa lowered her head and then slowly closed the door, trapping his friend with the others forever.  He knew now that there was nothing he could do.  He stepped back, looking up at the dark cursed building.  In three of the upper windows, he could see his friends staring back down at him.  They were dead too.  The dead of the hospital had taken them and locked them away from the world.  But he was free and did not know why.

            Lucas walked down the dirt track to the road leading back to Route 16 alone.

                                                *                      *                      *

            Doctor Murdock ran his hands across the dirty floor, searching for his flashlight, while he waited for Jesse to return with the blue prints.  He cursed his luck in finding the weak floorboards and falling through.  His side was still throbbing from the fall and Jesse was taking forever with the easy task he had given her.  He felt like giving her the appropriate spanking when he got out of this little mess.

            Murdock stopped.  He had no idea where that thought had come from.  It was unprofessional and totally unlike him to think such a thing.  Could it be the building?  He dismissed the idea.  His own research was getting to him.  He continued searching for the flashlight.

            A scuffling sound to his left caught his attention.  Murdock craned his head to the side and peered into the shadows beyond the dim light coming from above.  He could see nothing.  He figured it had been just a mouse searching for crumbs to feed on.  But the something moved again and this time it sounded bigger than a mouse.

            “Is someone there?” Murdock called out.  No one answered but he knew that there was someone there, lurking.  He needed to find the flashlight fast. 

His hands swept back and forth, gathering only dust but praying that he’d gather something else.  After a few moments of searching, a hand reached forward with his flashlight in it.  Murdock jumped back at the hand’s appearance and stared at the black curtain that it had come out of.  The hand was small and the nails on it were painted baby blue.  It gripped the large adult flashlight in it tightly, trying hard to not allow it to fall to the floor.  Murdock saw that it was a young girl’s hand and put his own to his mouth. 

There was an answer to who belonged to the hand.  Murdock knew from all the research he had done the night before.  There was only one girl involved in the history of this building.  But to think that it was hers was stupidity at it’s highest.  After all, the one girl who came to mind would obviously be at least fifty years old now.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.  You can come out of there.  My name is Jerry.  What’s your name?” Murdock said, holding his hand out gently to the girl hiding in the shadows.  The girl said nothing, only stepping out of the dark into the dim light for the doctor to see. 

Murdock’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped low.  It was the one who had come to his mind.  Melissa Carthwright was standing before him, holding out his flashlight to him.  It was impossible.  It had to be some hallucination of some kind.  Had he been working too hard and his mind had mixed the fantasy with reality?  Was he going mad, just like Lucas Barnes had?

“Melissa?  Are you Melissa?” he asked the girl who stood before him.  The girl smiled and swayed back and forth as if she were shy.

“You’re not real.  You can’t be real.  This is impossible,” Murdock said, raising his voice with every word, “You’re not real!  You’re nothing!  Nothing!”

The girl appeared frightened and stepped back.  Murdock stumbled to his feet and pointed his finger in Melissa’s face, telling her to go back to the hell she came from.  Melissa, scared, frowned and pointed back at Murdock.  He stopped and looked at her with a puzzled look.  Melissa looked off to her right into the darkness as if someone else were there.  Murdock looked and saw nothing but black.  He flipped his flashlight on and aimed it at the direction that Melissa was staring.  There in the dark, stood all fifty-six victims of the hospital’s curse.  They surrounded Murdock from every direction.

“No.  This isn’t happening.  NO!”

Five minutes later, Jesse returned to the room where Doctor Murdock fell with the blueprints in her hand.  She glanced down into the room below, smiling.

“Sorry, I took so long.  I had trouble with the trunk lock.  Here are the blueprints.”  She threw the beam of her flashlight back and forth, yet the doctor was no where to be found.  Instead there lay a trail of dark liquid where the doctor once stood.

“Doctor Murdock?”  She waited and found no answer.  As she stared at the dark liquid, her mind began to identify it.  Blood.  The doctor’s blood.  A shiver went up her spine and she gasped at the sight.

Jesse Alexander ran out of the decaying hospital and jumped into the doctor’s car.  She turned the keys that were left in the ignition and drove away as fast as she could.

                                    *                      *                      *

Martha Barnes walked up to the reception desk in the lobby of the Hamilton Psychiatric Facility.  She had taken the day off to visit the facility and see how her son’s treatment was progressing.  The woman behind the counter was a sweet looking older woman with the nametag that read: Glenna.  She looked up from her woman’s magazine and smiled at Martha.

“Good afternoon, may I help you?” Glenna asked.

“Yes, I’m here to visit my son, Lucas Barnes.”

“Oh yes, Lucas.  I’m sorry but his doctor, Doctor Murdock is not here today.”

“Well is there someone else that can help me see him?”

“I can have Doctor Murdock’s supervisor, Doctor Feldman, explain Lucas’s treatment, if you’d like.”

“Yes please.”

“I’ll just need you to fill out this form.  It’s procedure that you do.”  Glenna handed Martha a clipboard with a sheet of paper attached to it.

“No, that’s fine.  I understand the whole security procedure.”  Martha took the clipboard and filled out the paperwork that would allow her into the facility to see Lucas.  Once she was finished, she handed it back to Glenna.  The receptionist looked the paper over and frowned.

“I’m sorry, you forgot to fill in this part,” Glenna said to her, pointing to a section on the paper.  Martha looked down at the section and smiled.

“I’m sorry, I must have just passed that by.  I’m just in a hurry to see my boy.  It’s been two weeks since he was brought in here.”

“Oh I understand.  I’m a mother of five myself.  If anything happened to my own, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Martha took the pen from the desk and filled in the section of the paper that she had missed.  Glenna took it back and looked at it.  Her brow creased as she read what Martha filled in.

“Your maiden name is Carthwright?  That name sounds familiar.  Have you and your family lived in Monmouth County for long?” Glenna asked.

“No, I’ve lived up in Bergen County.  I don’t have any family around here,” Martha replied.

“Hmm, strange.  I could have sworn that I heard that name before.  Anyway, follow me and I’ll take you to Doctor Feldman.”  Martha Barnes walked behind Glenna through the double doors and into the halls of the facility.

THE END….?