"We heard that the hospital hasn't been in use for some time," I said.
"Not most of it, no. In Ward 2 there's an outpatient clinic, and it also served as a methadone treatment center in the eighties and nineties. That's been shut down for the last few years, though. When St. Joseph's came in, it was like a life saver. No one knew what else to do with this place."
"Still, lack of sufficient mental health care for impoverished people is a very important social issue." Theo impressed the heck out of me, considering I knew she pulled that out of her butt. She missed her calling for improv acting.
Theo had pulled out a notebook from her messenger bag, which she always had a steady stock of to draw on when the mood struck. She started jotting down notes, although she might have just been scribbling.
"Why did they stop using the asylum?" Theo asked.
"It started with a lack of funding," Diane said, sighing. "Everything comes down to cash, doesn't it? State funding and donations grew much slimmer in the seventies. People don't always want to think about the mentally disadvantaged. They'd rather just ignore them and hope they go away."
"That's unfortunate," Theo said. "My aunt was in a facility like this one. She had severe mental issues, they really affected the whole family. And then there was the drug addiction...she'd steal pills out of the medicine cabinet, anything in a prescription bottle, even if it was a antacid."
I was shocked. I'd never heard about this mystery aunt.
"There are so many stories like that," the nurse nodded. "We could fill books. Every day there was a new set of people to try and help. It'll suck the soul right out of you."
My eyes continued taking in the details of the yellowed map, committing them to memory. "I'm sorry to interrupt. Is there still a working bathroom? It was a long drive here," I said.
"Sure, the plumbing's still on while they're doing the renovations. It's not pretty but it's functional. Follow me." Theo bobbed her head in my direction, staying put.
Diane led me down a narrow, bile-green hallway with chipped tile on the floors. It was dark from a lack of windows and most of the bulbs being broken out above. It looked more like the building should be knocked down than rebuilt.
She opened a door on the left, flipping on the light switch. There were dead flies and beetles in the fixture and on the grimy windowsill. Crumpled maple leaves were piled up on the floor, having gotten in through a triangular hole in the window. Two of the sinks had been torn out, leaving the pipes exposed. Only one filthy sink remained, with an out-of-place, cheerful bottle of hand soap.
"Like I said, not pretty," she said, smiling apologetically. "But you can get the job done. Toilet's in the corner."
She shut the door behind me and I listened to her footsteps retreating. The toilet was filthy, with rust around the base and a broken lid. But I wasn't concerned with using it anyway, despite guzzling the frozen mocha.
After listening at the door through a moment of silence, I slipped back out. I had mapped a route to the records room in my head. It shouldn't be far. I turned right then left and right again, the hallways tall but narrow. I was getting closer to construction, judging by the loud noises of material being ripped apart I heard ahead.
Records Room
read chipped red paint the door on the right. I tried the knob, hoping it wasn't locked. I was in luck, and it creaked open. The stained glass in the door had spots that were popped out.
The room was full of banker's boxes and filing cabinets, piled to the ceiling. Two huge waste cans in the corner were marked
For Incineration
, and both were full of files and papers. The round electrical switch wasn't working, so the only dim light was from a trio of dirty windows. I stood still, feeling helpless. I had no idea where to begin.
It didn't help that I knew I was running on a very strict time limit. It wouldn't take long for Diane to realize I wasn't still in the bathroom, and come looking for me.
I dug through the metal filing cabinets, careful to mask the squeaks as I pulled out individual drawers. There was only a very, very slim chance I'd find Eleanor, but it was like playing the lottery. I closed my eyes, and for once, actually felt out my instincts. It took a second, but a faint kind of energy pulsed from my chest. I followed it.
There were files in water-stained boxes in the corner, labeled by year of admission. She had been here in the 1960s. One particular box seemed to radiate energy, around the middle of one of the stacks —
2nd quarter 1964
. I couldn't describe it; all the cheesiness about a sixth sense suddenly made sense to me. It was like reaching out with a limb I'd never known I had, both a hand and a foot and yet neither of those.
I lifted off the other boxes, leaving the one from 1964 exposed. Tearing off the lid, I started digging out the files.
Eleanor Hodgekiss was near the middle. The file itself felt sad and confused, the emotions clinging to the paper like the smell of mold. My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out, balancing the box.
Nurse is getting suspicious
Theo had warned.
I rolled up Eleanor's file and jammed it in my purse, then threw the rest of the files back in the box and left the room. The door banged behind me, and I winced. I stood still, hoping that no one had heard. Rough footsteps hit the tile, from the area of the construction.
A man in a yellow hardhat came around the corner, looking irritated at being disrupted. When he saw me, he scowled, clenching his hands into fists.
"Hey you!" he shouted. "What are you doing down here?"
CHAPTER 12
WITHOUT WAITING FOR
my reply, the construction worker roughly grabbed my arm. He was in his early thirties, but very muscular betneath the reflective vest he wore.
"Let's go," he said.
"I w-was in the bathroom. I got l-lost on my way back." I stuttered. He was twisting my arm and I had to shuffle my feet fast to keep up the pace with him. His arms were covered in wiry, black hair.
"Oh, right, that's original," he said, still gruffly dragging me back towards the front. "We've had to deal with a hell of a lot of troublemakers around here, coming in at all hours of the day. Have some respect."
The halls became more familiar. I dreaded the sign that said we were heading back to reception. We reached the check-in area, where a visibly strained Theo was still pretending to scribble notes in her notebook.
"We were starting to worry about you," Diane said, adjusting a cracked paperweight on her desk. She started fiddling with her gray braid.
I expected the orderly to rat me out. I think he was planning on it, too. But instead, he paused, assessing me. He glared, as if glaring was his only facial expression. "So you're okay with them here, Nurse D?"
"Sure. They're not causing any trouble," Diane said.
The bear of a construction worker stalked off, his utility belt clunking against his jeans.
"Long bathroom trip," I said softly.
"You aren't feeling sick, are you?" Diane asked, but I couldn't tell if she was genuinely concerned, or if she knew something was off and was just mocking me.
"No. But we do have to be going," I said. I could feel the weight of Eleanor's file in my purse, threatening to yank it off my shoulders. It had to just be my imagination. A roll of paper couldn't be that heavy.
"Do you think you have everything you need?" Diane asked Theo politely.
"Yes, definitely. Thanks for the ear, as well."
"Sure. Not much to do these days around here. They've only kept me on because they don't think they could get rid of me. I've been here so long, they'll have to demolish me, too. Send me a copy of your article when it's finished, okay, girls?"
We assured her we would. I almost thought about faking one to send to her later. We rushed out and to Theo's car, not talking until we were out of the shadow of the weeping willows. It made me a little sad to deceive such a kind, lonely person.
"That was interesting," Theo said, buckling herself in.
"Did you really have an aunt who had mental problems?"
"Nope, saw it on
Intervention
," she said triumphantly as we got back into the car. "I wasn't lying when I said that healthcare for poor people is woefully inadequate, though."
Soon, the Toyota was cruising down the expressway. Theo told me how Diane had talked about the renovation, and a few of her old patients, but mostly Theo had been filling the silence between she and the nurse with ever outlandish stories.
"There's only so much imagination in my head," Theo said, shaking her head. "It is a small head."
"Well, thanks for covering for me."
I could see rain in the sky, off in the West where we were heading. There was a periwinkle haze beneath the cloud's pregnant bellies, meaning the rain was falling hard for someone.
"So what were you gone so long for?" Theo asked finally.
I pulled the file out of my purse, snagging it on the zipper. In the car, with the cross breeze filtering through the windows, it reeked of mold and age. So I hadn't imagined the smell.
"What is that?"
"My grandmother's medical file. Claire had a copy of it, but she shredded it." I cracked open the cover, and started thumbing through it, but I couldn't concentrate enough to really read it yet. I was still buzzing with the excitement of getting caught but escaping by the skin of my teeth.
"Wow, how did you ever find that?" Theo asked.
"Luck," I said. But I figured I'd used up the little bit I'd got.
Rain began to pour when we got back into Hell, the wipers shrieking across the windshield. That was how rains came now: a slit would cut through the clouds, empty the water, and ten minutes later it would be dry again. The birds took off in great, gusty flocks, right into the howling wind.
I didn't want to get into reading the file until I was alone. It felt too personal to even have Theo nearby. I wondered if these would be the same files that Claire had shredded, but I figured the institution's documents would be even more thorough then what they'd send home with the patient.
Theo dropped me off at home, and I casually went down the stairs, after checking in with my parents. My shoulders felt heavy again for some odd reason, like I'd been lifted weights. Thunder rumbled outside, and I could still hear the rain pattering the ground.
Since her anger about me hanging out with Theo, Jenna usually only wandered up to me when she got bored. It had been a lot like that when she was alive, I'd realized.
But when I walked into the basement, she ran instantly to me. Lightning brightened the room in a flash and thunder cracked again. She seemed to run through the garbage on the floor, passing deftly through an ottoman and an old planter.
"Ariel!" she practically shouted at me. Her eyes were wide with what looked like fear.
"What's the matter?" I had to console myself with the fact that she wasn't alive, so she couldn't be hurt.
"Where we you?" she asked. "I didn't know where you were, it was like everything went gray. I didn't think you'd ever come back."
I remembered the feeling of weight coming off of my shoulders. And now they were heavy again...
"I couldn't find you," Jenna sniffled, as though she were crying from dry eyes. "I couldn't feel you anymore. There was fog outside the windows, and it kept getting thicker. I thought it was going to start coming in beneath the door..."
"Calm down. It's okay. There's no fog now, right? I'm here."
She kept babbling, not comforted by my words. If anything they only made her more manic.
"It was the thickest fog I've ever seen, and there were shapes in it. I couldn't make out what they were, but I think they were some kind of animals or creatures..."
"Now I think you're the one who's been watching too much horror," I said gently.
"You have to listen!" Jenna said, obviously close to completely freaking out. Without warning, she shot her arms out and grabbed a hold of both of my forearms. I only had a second to realize it before I was no longer in control of my body.
A bone-splitting shock rippled all the way up to my brain, obliterating rational thought and control. I dropped like a stone.
Someone was dragging my body. Over earth dotted with hard stones that cut into my back. Sticks ripped my shirt, my hair, like little needles in my scalp. I cracked my swollen eyes. I could feel the life draining out of me and into the ground, and I seemed lighter. I knew I didn't have much blood left in me, and my heart was beating very slowly, like the beat of an old waltz. My veins were almost empty, as though I'd been drained by an efficient vampire.
The person who was dragging me grunted. Through my eye-slits, I saw the gray black sky, smudgy charcoal, a dark fading into something impossibly darker. Rain fell on my face, sharp drops of silver. I tried moving my arms, but they didn't work. I didn't even feel that I
had
arms.
A bent, ugly tree hung over me, like it was watching the proceedings with great interest. Seagulls circled above, diving like vultures. The smell of dead fish and sewage made me want to gag.