She looked into the room and was shocked to find a woman standing over the rusted bed frame with no mattress, her head bent into her hands as she wept. Another surprise had been the dress the woman was wearing. It appeared to be a white nurse’s dress, the kind they used to wear in the early 1900’s. She froze in fear, her mind racing back to the creepy nurse she had seen on several occasions. But this wasn’t her.
Bewildered, Linda stepped into the room. “Excuse me,” she said and took another step toward the woman. She kept her steps light, not wanting to startle the woman and cause her to attack. On many occasions, Linda had attacked strangers for startling her and not knowing what they wanted.
The woman continued to stand there and sob.
“Excuse me,” Linda said again, almost to the woman.
Linda was sure the woman heard her this time, or at least was acknowledging her now. The woman straightened her shoulders and lowered her hands to her sides, but instead of turning around, she took a step forward.
“Ma’am?” Linda questioned, not knowing what the woman was doing. She was stepping further and further up against the wall. She had nowhere to go. “Are you all right?”
The woman took one final stepped toward the wall and vanished.
Linda gasped and stepped back. A chill spread out across her body and she turned for the door. Before rushing out like she had planned, she paused and looked at the dresser. Lying on top was a crumpled, yellowing piece of paper. She could hardly make out the writing.
It’s happening again. I can hear their pleas and I want to help, but I can’t. I’m too weak. How dare they do this to us! How dare they!
Linda flipped the page over to see if there was more, but it was blank. She stood studying the paper for a moment longer, wondering who had written it, when a picture flew off the wall. Jolted back into action, Linda rushed out the door and back onto the balcony. There was no more denying it. Something was terribly wrong with this place.
Loud growls echoed on the deck as Linda opened the door out onto the verandah, almost hitting Sebastian with the door. He stood rigid, his tail straight in the air. His head was low as a soft growl shook his chest. His eyes were trained on the hallway she just came from. Linda didn’t need another confirmation that something was wrong, but she was getting it anyway.
“Come on, boy. Let’s get out of here.”
As she turned to leave, she felt the air turn cold. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
“You need to leave while you can or you’ll never get out alive.”
The voice spoke from behind her. Linda whirled around. No one was there. “Jeff?” Only silence greeted her.
Sebastian ran off, whimpering as if he had been scared. Or hurt.
“Who’s there? Who are you? What do you want?”
Linda waited for an answer but there was none. Silence. Only silence.
She felt herself being drawn to the west wing. She didn’t want to go there but she had to. She was being forced to. As she walked along the hallway, almost in a trance, she saw people seated on chairs along the wall watching her. Some had needles sticking out of their chests; some had sweat pouring off of their brows. Some were shaking and coughing violently, wrapped in blankets although the hallway was hot and humid.
Linda walked into a room and was horrified to see what looked like an operating room. Three men had their chests exposed, leeches stuck to them, as they violently twisted and turned, trying to break free of the shackles that bound them to the tables. Their eyes pleaded with her to help them.
Their screams grew louder and louder. Linda covered her ears and closed her eyes. What the hell was going on in there?
As her eyes opened, she saw the creepy nurse motion to someone. The doctor in the dirty lab coat picked up an instrument that looked like a small ice pick and rammed it into a man’s chest. Linda heard his ribs crack and threw up the coffee she had drunk.
I have to help these people! I have to.
With a surge of energy, Linda raced towards the doctor, ready to do whatever she had to do to stop him.
The nurse’s eyes met hers as she ran with outstretched arms towards the doctor, ready to wrestle him to the ground. Linda ran hard into the wall, knocking the wind out of herself and crashing to the floor. The nurse laughed and came at her with the ice pick instrument. Linda felt an overwhelming pain in her shoulder as blood spurted out. She reached to pull the instrument out, but nothing was there.
She stood up, her shoulder in unbearable pain. There was no blood. The nurse was now gone. And so were the men shackled to the tables.
Chapter Five
April 24th
Linda paced the kitchen, while looking from Sebastian’s food bowl to the door. “Where could he be?” she asked Jeff for the third time.
He put the morning paper aside and took another bite of his cereal before answering. “I don’t know, honey. He’s probably out chasing birds again in the garden.”
Linda wanted to agree with him, but she had a sick feeling in her stomach that that wasn’t the case. “But it’s breakfast time. He always comes in for breakfast after his morning walk.”
“Maybe his new-found freedom is getting to his head,” Jeff amended.
Linda couldn’t deny that Sebastian had been spending more time outdoors this past week. Whenever he wasn’t outside in the garden, he was upstairs sleeping in their bed. He hardly followed them around like the eager puppy he had been when they first arrived.
When Linda continued to pace the floor, trying to decide if it was that big of a deal or not, Jeff stood from his seat. He placed his empty bowl in the sink and walked over to the door. He grabbed the leash and looked at Linda with soft, kind eyes.
“Come on. Let’s go find him.”
She hugged his neck, thankful he was taking this seriously, and followed him outside.
As they walked the side of the grounds toward the garden, Linda debated whether or not to tell Jeff about the incidents that had happened the last few days. She believed she could talk to Jeff about anything, until recently. They had never talked about ghosts or anything remotely similar, not even religion. They had always lived their life day to day, doing their best to move forward. But now, after everything that had happened, she wanted to confide in him.
What held her back was his reaction. She wasn’t sure she could handle it if he laughed and made fun of her. She had no doubts about what she had seen. She knew something wasn’t right with the place, and that something terrible must have happened there for spirits to be lingering. That’s what she had always heard anyway. That spirits stayed and didn’t move on because of something terrible that had happened to them.
The thought of Jeff looking at her like she was insane terrified her, even more than the ghosts. She needed his support and cherished his strong-willed nature. But what if a conversation such as this broke him, broke their relationship?
They turned the last corner to the garden, and Jeff called out for Sebastian. Linda was brought back to the moment and began calling for Sebastian herself. She had made up her mind. She wasn’t going to talk to Jeff about it right now. She would wait until she had better evidence to give him than just her word. What evidence that may be, she wasn’t sure, but she would bide her time as long as she could.