There was a time when I would go prowling around at night with a select handful of friends and seek the unexplained and paranormal. Generally speaking we returned empty handed, or when something did come up it was easily dismissed as something natural. However one night, apparently cursed, my fellows and I ventured into the ruins of an abandoned hospital and witnessed a singularly terrifying event.
The players in question were...
We were old hat at the business of ghost hunting, two of us had advanced degrees in Ghostbusters quoting in fact. Unfortunately this would not prepare us for what we found inside the old hospital that quiet spring night.
Funny thing is the place we went to, Old Saint John's Hospital in Oxnard, CA, we had been more than once, or rather Mike and I had been. I had taken photo's and explored the nooks and crannies of the place. I had a degree of familiarity with the site that kept me from feeling nervous about what I might find, in spite of the gruesome stories. Rumours abounded, told by former employees that the unnatural events plaguing the hospital was partly the reason they built a new site across town. In the microbiology labs faucets and decontamination showers would spring to life simultaneously, forcing the night crew to go through and turn off each handle. An old man would ride the elevator with you in silence, before disappearing as you were about to reach his floor. In pediatrics a little girl would sit with the sick children and talk about their days, confounding the nurses who had no recollection of such a girl being in the ward. In the basement, beside the morgue where the autopsies would take place tools would go missing, strange shuffling sounds could be heard all the way in cardiology down the hall. Shadows prowled the rooftops and hallways at night, and every so often, on the third floor in the maternity ward a pale and bloody woman would wander the halls with her stillborn baby. Suffice it to say it scared the hell out of the night shift nurses.
So in spite of such stories we had never experienced anything, well, nearly anything. We had heard doors, crashing open and hurried footsteps down hallways and stairwells. I attributed the sounds to a confused crack head, and found a route that kept us parallel and away from whatever was thundering down the corridors. On another occasion we followed an unusual patch of shadow through the building, it waiting in doorways and fleeing silently down ramps and stairwells. These were however minor things, unusual, but not terrifying.
So it was with an eagerness usually reserved for bad movie night we went back, with Brandon in tow. Brandon hadn't been on a hunt for ages and wanted to see what the fuss was about. We pulled open a hole in the fence and he wriggled through then we approached the south side of the building. The place was shaped like an 8bit letter A, a hollow courtyard, with four long corridors around it, two of which extended South , the direction we would enter from. This meant you approached the broken glass doors, their interior pitch black, flanked on either side by three story walls, with inky black windows staring out at you, hiding anyone or anything that may be watching.
As I said the air was completely still, not even a trace of breeze touched the trees, and as we crossed underneath a small arch in the parking lot, a cross perched atop it Mike and I froze. A icy shiver had gone up my spine and I was frozen in fear, an entirely new experience. Mike was equally motionless, staring ahead, mouth open.
"Hey Mike." I muttered.
"Yeah?" He mumbled.
"Did you just?"
"Yeah."
"Ever happen to you before?"
"Nope."
Regaining my composure I tapped Brandon on the shoulder, he had managed to move a bit further along while Mike and I were stuck in place.
"What?"
"Mike and I got a real bad feeling about this."
"So?"
"No, as in, I have never experienced such a case of complete dread at entering the building before."
"Well what are we supposed to do now?" Brandon shot a glance at the two of us.
"Well, we need to decide if we should head back or go on, because as it stands something bad might happen."
"Well, what do you want to do?" Brandon leaned against a short wall.
"I say we keep going." I replied, Mike approaching waving a hand in dismissal.
"Woh, lets think for a minute. We need to get some sort of guidance here." Mike explained crossing his arms.
"From who?"
"The big guy." Mike pointed up. Brandon began chuckling.
"Really? So you, a practicing Catholic, are going to ask God if we should enter the Hospital. you know according to your own religious tenets there are no ghosts." I laughed off the idea.
"Shut up, alright, you all keep quiet and I'll ask for guidance, then we'll wait here, for three minutes. If God doesn't want us in there, he'll give us a sign." Mike leaned against the wall and began praying, I nodded in silence and looked at Brandon. For three minutes we stood and waited, and just as my watch was about to run out of time for our request a single leaf scrapped across the ground towards us. Mike's eyes were wide, Brandon's equally so, I pursed my lips and shrugged. the leaf continued towards us, then abruptly turned 90 degrees and followed the path back to the parking lot. We were all still, then...
"Ready to go in?" Mike clapped his hands.
"Yeah, lets get in there and see what we can find." I pointed into the shadowy recesses of the hospital door.
"What about the fuckin' leaf?" Brandon looked to the parking lot.
"What leaf?" We said and made our way forward.
Once inside the door there is a long corridor dead ahead, that terminates at an elevator and a sharp left leading to the cafeteria. Along that same entrance corridor is a right turn that runs alongside what used to be a gift shop, empty, even its fixtures long gone. This little passage will then open up into a T intersection, to the right a few rooms, to the left a long black hallway, occasionally stained by light from the street lamps outside, shining through broken windows. At the end of this left most hallway is the haunted elevator, a stairwell leading to the upper floors, and microbiology wrapping around the Northern most expanses of the hospital. We followed this particular hallway, leading to the stairs, our destination either the basement or a more complete look at the other floors. As we moved stealthily along the hall the dread in us grew, Brandon's eyebrow cocked like the hammer on a pistol, his eye darting into and out of rooms on either side. It was important to, no matter what, not picture a pale face looking back from the other side of a empty room, slumped in a corner, hollow black eyes seeming to recognize something in you, more frightening that it simply saw you and knew you were there. As we made our way we heard something and stopped. Scratching, quiet at first, the with speed and vigor it sped towards us, along the roof, scratching and clawing sounds, circling over an empty hole above us.
"Pigeons." I said, there were pigeons in many of the rooms, and assuredly they probably got inside the panels as well.
"Yeah, pigeons." Mike said, looking back down the hallway. the sound stopped as suddenly as it started, and we moved forward a foot, when again, the scratching returned, this time from behind us, rushing towards us at an amazing speed, tumbling around over us then stopping.
"Alright, when I said pigeons I may have been optimistic."
"Well, which way do we go?" Mike looked up and down the corridors. Abruptly the entire hallways was filled with scratching and movement. I stood silently, eyes furtively looking around, the whole length of the corridor seemed alive with sound. Suddenly it stopped.
"We should head deeper in, take the stairs and check out the third floor, obviously we have a busy night." I said, looking down the hallway.
It should also be important to point out that we had no lights, or rather none to speak well of. Brandon had found a communion candle in his car, its light less powerful than a match's, and Mike and I had acquired a single lantern Unable to illuminate more than a few feet in any direction. We simply couldn't use these either as the light they cast made it difficult to see what lay ahead.
With only moonlight and our own ability to see in the dark we headed down the hallway, expecting more strange sights and sounds in no time. We reached the stairwell without incident, and carefully pulled the door open, the walls were cracked and decaying, leaves, papers and weird stains covered the floor. We bunched together and moved inside, taking the stairs a few steps at a time, eyeballing what lay above us. We slinked past the second floor and arrived at the third floor landing. I looked at the door knob, Mike looked at me, Brandon peeked back down the stairs.
"Well, open it." Mike pointed. the sense of doom had been slowly filling us since we had entered, and now all of our cups were running over with terror. We had never been so collectively immobilized before.
"No way, what if she's right fuckin' there." I stared at the door.
"I'm not opening it." Mike looked back to Brandon.
"Stop lookin' at me, I am not touchin' that door." Brandon never even looked at us, keeping his eyes steadily below us.
"Alright, we'll both open the door." Mike said flatly.
"Deal." We extended our hands and grabbed the doorknob, then pushed, Brandon turned his attention away from the stairs and gazed over the top of us. The door inched open as we pushed and then furtively we looked into the third floor. Directly in front of us was a nurses station and a very long hallway running to the opposite side of the hospital, the doors open, letting slivers of light through. To our right was another hallway running the width of the hospital, door also open. We cautiously placed our feet onto the rug and took our first step inside. At that moment we could hear it. A low far away sound, in the back of our ears, nothing close, but there none the less.
"You hear that?" Mike asked, raising his foot.
"Yeah." I lifted mine and we moved forward one pace, now the sound was clearer, and even more disturbing. It was mumbling, a long off unintelligible gibberish bubbling from the darkness. Our eyes bulged from our sockets and we took our third and final step into the third floor. now the sound was growing in intensity, new voices joining, male, female, inhuman mumbling, and at the end of the corridor directly in front of us a door slammed. The light cut off, then another to our right, with each door that closed the sound grew louder, and closer. It wasn't coming from the halls it sounded as though it was coming from our own ears, malevolent chanting inches form our heads. Doors slammed slowly at first moving closer. We were frozen in complete indescribable terror, no near death experience or other incident has ever pinned me so completely. Blanched white, we couldn't move, we simply trembled as the slamming doors sped up and got closer. Then footsteps, tumbling away down the stairs. Pulling my eyes from the shadows ahead I saw Brandon fleeing at breakneck speed down the stairs. The spell temporarily broken I leaped down three steps and hurtled at Brandon's back, Mike the last one looking into the abyss abruptly realized he was alone and charged after us. We could here the mumbling becoming more distant, the slam of the third floor door, then horrible shriek as it opened again, slamming harder this time. whatever it was was on the stairwell with us, in pursuit for who knew what reason.
"Don't exit here!" I yelled at Brandon as he reached for the first floor door. "Keep going down the bottom door leads outside!" We tumbled after him a river of limbs flinging ourselves down deeper into the shadows reaching the door and rushing outside. SAFE! We fled from the door and out into the still silent night. I shook uncontrollably, my hair on end, no one could say anything.
"What the fuck was that!" Brandon punched at the sky.
"I have no clue." I said still shaking. Brandon and Mike produced packets of cigarettes, lit up and started puffing furiously.
"Did you hear that shit, it was in our God damned ears!" Brandon looked up at the third floor, ominously blank windows looked back.
"It sounded like chanting." Mike looked out at the street.
"So what we're dealing with is either some seriously fucked up thing in there or, worse yet a cult who we caught off guard." I began looking around the planters and walkways.
"If so they're probably waiting for us in there." Mike motioned at the door.
"Then lets leave." Brandon threw down his first cigarette lighting another.
"Guys," I came from behind a planter, with an unfortunate discovery, "We have to go back inside."
"Fuck no!" Brandon said with a scowl.
" We don't have a choice, there's no exit here, the fence doesn't have a gate or an exit." I pointed, on all sides a thirteen foot high chain link fence encircled our position, topped with barbed wire it was all but impenetrable.
"Aww shit. Game over man, game over!" Mike looked back at the building.
We stood out there for thirty minutes, Brandon and Mike both smoking their whole pack. We had settled on a plan, scrounging around outside we discovered a long metal rod, it was extremely heavy. We then found a lead pipe, a quarter of the length of the rod, Brandon took the rod and Mike took the pipe. We then formed ourselves into a defensive ball, Brandon would lead us, whilst I watched the doorways to our left and right, pushed against Brandon's back, Mike would face the rear and keep his back to my shoulder. We would move slowly down the hallway, and should anything approach we would destroy it instantly.
Plan settled and weapons ready we approached the door back to the stairwell, and discovered an unusual surprise. Pinned to the door, keeping it shut was a long bench.
"You put that there?" I asked Brandon.
"Nope."
"You?" I turned to Mike.
"Nope."
"Fuck it!" Brandon grabbed the bench and tossed it away, the door creaked open.
We maneuvered inside and began the arduous trek back up the stairs and down the hallway. Brandon waved the bar, a wooshing sound penetrating the silence. I would turn left and right, fists up waiting for some lunatic wearing a goat skull mask to pop up. Mike cautiously followed facing down the receding hallway.
"Whatever happens, don't leave me behind." Mike asked.
"Sure." I said.
"Sure thing." Brandon inched along.
It took us around an hour to reach the split hallway leading to the cafeteria and the exit, a span that took us less than ten minutes to span only a short while before. Brandon and I could see the shattered glass and the moonlight, the portal outside was right there, we were fifty feet from freedom. Simultaneously Brandon and I had the same thought. 'What if something was waiting patiently at the blind turn next to the exit.' Brandon and I had the same thought and acted in the same second. He thundered forward at breakneck speed and I followed behind him, certain that if anything popped out he would knock it over and I would slip by right behind. We burst through the shadows and into the open air, just behind us we could hear Mike.
"Do you hear that guys? Guys?" He turned and saw we had left him, the sound he was so worried about was our retreat. "Fuck you!" He ran after us.
With that we left, Mike and I knowing that someday we would return to unravel more secrets about the place. Though for the time being we were just glad to be free. We hadn't paid attention to the time that we had entered, but now returning to the car we knew we had gone in shortly before midnight, and could be almost certain that at the stroke of twelve was when we had entered the third floor.
I've seen shit that would turn you white.
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