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Ghost
After much discussion and few nips of brandy from John’s hip flask, we have decided to go on. We’ve been standing here in the hall for over fifteen minutes and there’s been no sound from overhead. At times we’ve imagined faint footsteps scurrying along the corridor, but put it down to the rats and mice, that are bound to be plentiful in a place like this. We’re going down into the basement. Remember I told you that this is where the treatment rooms and the mortuary are located and I find these to be the saddest and scariest place in the asylum. You will see things that will make your heart ache. Mental illness was considered a curse in those dark days and the treatment was barbaric. Yet, when you think about it, it was only twenty years ago. Let us hope things have changed dramatically for those who suffer from it these days. It’s freezing down here, but that’s to be expected of basements; they’re always cold, even in summer. Did you see those light; what were they? Oh, its rats, their eyes really blaze in the darkness. Let’s go in here. This was one of the treatment rooms. Follow the beam of my torch on the wall, as I move it slowly up. Can you see the chains and the leather restraints? They used to tie the violent patients up to the walls, shackled like prisoners. Is it any wonder they went mad? Let’s go next door; I want to show you the baths. They filled these with ice water and submerged hysterical patients in this for hours, because they believed it calmed them. Oh, my god, listen. That’s a woman’s voice, it’s faint, but you can make out the words.
“No, don’t, please no.”
That made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, come on. The dust in the corridor is really bad. It rises in clouds under our running feet. It had to come from in here. It’s a ward, with one bed, but this time the restraints are on the bedposts. Someone was strapped down here.
“Hello, did you call out just now?”
We wait in the deepening silence, until a shuffling in the corridor outside draws us out. It sounds like footsteps, dragging this time. They’re coming closer. Aim your flashlights down the corridor. What is that? It looks like a scarecrow wearing a lab coat. Is it someone’s idea of a sick joke, except…it’s moving? It’s a man or what once was a man. Tendrils of lank hair hang from a head that’s nothing more than a skull. The cheeks are sunken, the eyes dark, sightless hollows.
“Back away,” I whisper, but find you have already done so.
I’m doing the same, not taking my eyes off the advancing figure until I reach the stairs and then I’m running.
“Thanks for waiting for me. It’s no use looking shamefaced now. I was alone with that thing. Still, never mind, we’ve survived, though some of you look a little pale.”
We shouldn’t have been surprised by what we saw. The very air within warns that it’s a place of unrest. It surrounds you with a feeling of pain and hopelessness that can never be exorcised. We won’t be coming back here again.
It’s really cold tonight, hard to be its summer here. I’m delighted you are all here and I’m looking forward to our little ghost hunting adventure. Someone suggested that we split into groups, but I don’t feel that’s wise as I know the layout of the place and some of the floors are rotten and dangerous. What do you think of the place so far? The broken windows give it a menacing look, I know and the fading light makes eerie shadows flit across the walls, but believe me, what’s inside is much worse. I told you about the type of patient who was cared for here, the outcasts, and the unwanted. Echoes of their suffering are said to haunt the rooms and corridors, but try not to panic if you hear or see anything and whatever you do, stay close together. Got your flashlights? OK, let’s go.
Be careful, the steps leading up to the main door are littered with broken glass and bits of fallen masonry. I don’t see the point of a lock, with the condition of the window anyone could climb inside, but the owners insisted. Hold the light on it while I try to open it. Someone give me a hand, its rusted solid. Great, that did it, we’re in. The smell of damp and rotten wood is overpowering and the hallway floor is covered in a layer of dust and dead leaves. The thud of the door closing, cutting us off from the outside world, sounded very final. Let’s move on. The downstairs is made up mostly of admission and doctor’s offices, so our best plan is to start on the first floor. We can come back later to the basement. Keep in by the wall as we climb the stairs; the banisters are broken in places and the wood is likely to snap. This is where most of the wards were, but there are some in the basement. These, I believe were for the most dangerous cases and we will explore them later. Look how the damp glistens on the drab, green walls and there are strange-looking fungi growing through cracks in the floor. Be careful not to slip on them. The corridor here is a maze of old hospital trolleys and broken bits of furniture. It is so dark, even though the sun has not yet set. There are shadows everywhere, can you see them? They move like wraiths in the beam of the flashlights. Christ, that made me jump, a door slammed further along the corridor. Is one of you crying? No, did you hear it too? Someone is definitely crying. It’s down this way, come on. What’s wrong? Some of you are leaving. That’s fine, this isn’t for everyone. Can you find your way out or do you need me to guide you? Ok, see you later.
Our numbers are diminished, but let’s soldier on. There was a doctor working here over forty years ago and he had a reputation for terrible cruelty. Many of the patients had no one to care what happened to them, so he was allowed free rein when it came to some of his more unconventional treatments; well, not treatments as such, more experiments. Was that a sigh, perhaps, one of those of suffered at his hands is listening? This is where we thought we heard to crying coming from. It’s a four bed ward and look’ the covers are still in place. It looks like it was abandoned in a rush.
“Hello, is anyone there?”
The silence is deep as we wait for a reply.
“What, what did you see?”
Something is crawling out from under one of the beds; a black shadow that seems to be growing in substance, taking shape as it crawls up from the floor. OK, back away; this is not something we want to confront. One would expect the spirits trapped here to be those of the patients, but there’s something about this thing, something evil. Don’t run, watch where you’re going.
I expected everyone to be gone when I got back downstairs, but there are still three of you here. Do you want to explore the basement or should we leave it for another night?
As a prelude to tonight’s visit to the asylum, I’ve decided to tell you a bit about it, so you know what you’re letting yourself in for. The building itself is set over three levels, with a basement that once housed the treatment room and mortuary. The locals complain that it should have been demolished years ago, but its owners are either undecided or don’t have the money to do anything with it. Now and then a newspaper article will appear, as a former inmate recalls the horror of what they suffered there.
Like all abandoned buildings with a sinister reputation, it holds a strange fascination for the local children and it is through them I have learned much the history of the place. It took some effort to sieve through their stories and separate fact from fiction. It seems, and I’ve heard this from adults not the children, that the asylum catered for the most extreme cases, from mental illness to mutilations and terrible birth defects. The children grew pale as they whispered tales of the terrible things they’d seen there, even though the building was abandoned long before they were born. Their voices become choked with fear as they tell of the man with no face and the one with a trunk for a nose. They talk of strange figures and screams heard in the dead of night.
I will admit there is an air of menace about the place. On the day I first went there it was overcast, the sky grey and swollen with the promise of rain. It didn’t help that the wind blew through the empty corridors and sounded like the cry of a broken-heart child. So that’s what we’re up against tonight. I have permission from the owners for us to explore, though they take no responsibility for anything that happens to us while we’re there. Anyway, there will be a good crowd, so far sixteen of you want to come along. I’ll meet you back here at 9 p.m. It’s a damp, miserable day and the sun should start to set about then. Until tonight.
Have you recovered from our trip to the church? I hope so as I’ve planned to visit the haunted asylum tomorrow night. Contact me and let me know if you want to come along, or should I say, if you dare? I’m not going alone, it’s an old building with a sinister reputation and I’ve been advised to take someone with me, so I won’t go until I hear from you.
If it were possible for a genie to grant me one wish, I know without a doubt what the wish would be. I don’t mean like world peace or the end to all sickness, I mean one personal wish just for me. I would ask for the ability to sleep whenever I wanted. For years I’ve been plagued by insomnia and today, after almost 43 hours without sleep, I have that awful hungover, fuzzy feeling that comes with lack of sleep. I find it very hard to get my mind to switch off and I suppose there are a lot of writers and artists who find this. I’ve tried everything from sleeping pills, that made me feel down the next day and Sunday night I took Valerian, which I was assured would knock out a horse, but neigh, I’m still awake.
My mind sometimes wonders back to my school days and bible teaching. I think of Christ in the garden at Gethsemane and his words to Peter and the sons of Zebedee, “could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” Perhaps, I am descended from one of these disciples and am now cursed to stand watch forever? It sometimes feels like this.
I am thinking of words this morning, as I prepare to write and how their meaning can effect and convey a true feeling. When someone had to cope with the most terrible of losses, it’s not enough to say they were crying or sobbing. I think weeping is a much better word and it says more about the human condition than either of the other words could. Weeping denotes the wretchedness of hope flown. It reaches into the soul and resounds through the ages. It really is the most pitiful of sounds.
I was amazed to read that our local university was offering a weekend course on developing your psychic ability and becoming a medium. Surely, if such a power exists, and who am I to say it doesn’t, then it comes naturally and is not something that can be learned? As I am interested in all things paranormal, I have gone to many shows where well-known mediums throw random comments at the audience and are those who are desperate enough to put their hand up when they say something like, “I have a John here, does that mean anything to anyone?” Oh please, you’re thinking, as I have, but remember this person who answers has lost someone they love and want reassurance that they are safe and in a better place.
I went to one medium who was doing private sessions. I wasn’t going in to see her, but went with a friend. As I grow older, I tend to avoid these people, as I believe that the spirit world should be left alone. A teenager went in before my friend and came out sobbing. I asked her what the matter was and she said that the medium said she saw her standing over an open grave before the year was out. Can you believe that, who in their right mind was say something like that to a child? My friend refused to keep her appointment after that, more from fear I think, than outrage and we spent the next few hours talking the young girl out of her fright. I read about another young mother who having lost her little girl went to one of these so called psychics and was told her little girl was crying for her in heaven!
I believe it is against the law in some countries to say you are psychic if you’re not, but who controls these things? If there are people who can speak to the dead then so be it, theirs is a rare gift and I respect that, but what about the others, the charlatans who prey on the vulnerable, do there really believe they can get away with the harm they cause? Let’s hope for their sake, that the world they so carelessly exploit is forgiving, otherwise there will be Hell to pay.
A writer dies and goes to heaven. Here he sees thousands of other writers all chained to desks tapping away on their computers.
“This is heaven!” he exclaims. “Is this is heaven, what is hell like?”
“Let me show you,” St Peter offers.
So they go down to hell and here they find it exactly as it was in heaven, thousands of writers chained to desks.
“I don’t understand,” the man says. “How is hell any different to heaven.”
“Ah, you see,” St Peter says. “In heaven you have a chance at being published.
Fledgling writers take heart.
gemmamawdsley 