My Probation Consists on Guarding an abandoned Asylum | Part 5

 

Part 4 | Part 6

I couldn´t close the Chappel. After being thrown and smashed open the doors of the religious corner of the Bachman Asylum, it turns out I needed a key to lock the entrance as I am instructed to do by my tasks list.

Searched for it on the janitor’s closet on Wing A. No light, no space, just cobwebs and old plastic containers with weird chemicals that I can smell even from outside the door. Those aren’t cleaning supplies. A mop fell and startled me a little. I got out.

At the management office I was luckier. In the spacious, well illuminated, not broken windows (that’s new) space with a giant mahogany desk that appears hand carved, there was a cork mount with some keys hanging on the South wall. They were even marked. “Lighthouse,” “Chappel” and “Morgue.” The one below the “Morgue” sign was missing.

No sweat. Just needed the Chappel one. Took it.

Before leaving, I noticed there is a map of the building. Skimmed the places I already know by heart looking for the morgue that I didn’t know we had. If there was one, it didn’t appear on the map. What I did find was that in the second story of the building were the medical professionals’ dorms.

The key was useless. The lock was busted. I will need to ask Alex to also bring some chains on its next trip to deliver me groceries.

By the moment being, just placed a mop on the door handles to prevent them from opening on its own. Task achieved.

The next task: “4. Really clean the blood in the cafeteria.”

Fuck.

***

I had a new strategy. At random, I picked a radioactive-looking teal chemical from the janitor’s closet and almost emptied it on the ever-returning scarlet stain. Rubbed it hard with a mop until it almost fell apart and the floor lost several layers of atoms.

After two hours, the blotch finally gave in. Yes, you can discern where it was, but the crimson puddle was no more.

Walked two steps when a horror scream stopped me.

Turned back. The axe ghost swung his weapon down. Chopped clean the head of a nurse spirit. He was (is?) The Slaughterer.

The medical worker’s head rolled to my feet as the aortic artery’s ectoplasmic blood was jumping like a fountain out of her torso.

“Help me,” the head in the ground told me with a feminine and far away voice.

Suppress my instinct to kick it as its body splashed against the newly formed red mud.

Shit, not again.

The Slaughterer lifted his weapon and harpooned his dark penetrating eyes towards mine. Touched my neck. Don’t feel anything on it.

The phantom smiled at me.

I fled the scene.

***

Upon arriving at my office, I slammed the door shut. The specter was running towards the room. The necklace I was given by Stacey was on the sink of the personal bathroom so small you practically take a shower and a dump in the same spot. The ghoul assaulted the entrance with his rusty axe. Put the necklace around my neck. Attacks stopped.

I sighed.

RING!

That motherfucking wall phone again. I answered it before it could ring a second time. It was the same voice I heard from a ghostly head that shouldn’t have been able to talk with its vocal cords sliced in half.

“Please, help me. You are the only one who could help me.”

Those words reverberated through the old device, my jawbone and all the way to seven years ago. In the industrial, dirty and threatful prison, I was clinching myself to the phone. The metal device’s coldness was only rivalled by Lisa’s, my ex-girlfriend, on the other side of the line. With my broken voice I attempted communicating with her.

“Please, help me. You are the only one I could call.”

The phone hung up.

***

Went back to the management office. Looked in the desk’s right drawer and… aha! The employees record.

Funnel them looking just for nurses, then women only, and finally I started evaluating the pictures. I don’t have a good memory, but Talking Heads and Psycho Killers go side by side, and live permanently in your gray matter.

There it was. The picture of a called Nancy K. Same straight face and deep stare were part of her even alive. Inspected the record. The only information that could lead me somewhere was that she resided on dorm 7.

***

Never had gone up to the second floor of the building. If the lower one was at the brink of falling apart, this second placed me at risk of sinking with it. There was nothing more than dorm doors on both sides of a long hallway. This story didn’t cover all the building area of the first one, I took an educated guess that it must just be the size of the library and Wing A.

The entrances were numbered. I went directly to the “7”. On the opposite side of it, there was a door with a giant dripping ruby “X” drawn. Ignored this second fluid stain. Entered Nancy’s former room.

Bigger than my office. Wider window and with no bars on it. A seven-inch, sadly now rotten and spring-perforated mattress that made me jealous, and a whole set of cheap wooden furniture. As I hoped, in the first drawer of the bureau was a journal.

Skimmed the last three entries. Read about her patients, family and feelings. Two things were important. First, she was apparently in love and having an affair with the doctor in charge of the Bachman Asylum when it was abandoned, Dr. Weiss. And second, the name of the patient known as The Slaughterer was Jack.

Pang.

As if reading about him had summoned him, a thump interrupted my investigation. Jack was in the threshold. Hit his axe against the door frame to produce a dull sound. We looked at each other with a poker face. His eyes sockets were trying to penetrate my soul, but he wouldn’t approach.

On top of the bureau there was a ring with a small green jewel.

Jack shook his head.

Grabbed the ring.

He stumped with force his axe against the unsteady floor.

I approached the entryway.

Jack stood in its place.

With my free hand I smushed my necklace.

Jack backed up enough to let me pass through.

Without losing the immobile spirit from my sight, I went down the stairs.

***

Doctor Weiss’ office was different when watching it standing up. It was big, luxury-packed for an isolated wooden Asylum in the nineties, and his chair seemed to have been truly comfortable before termites had eaten it. The bookshelf caught my attention with its copper statues of lions and Angels, colorful crystalline rocks, and it surprised me that he was a Tolkien fan.

Left Nancy’s ring on the desk, next to the name plate.

A woman’s scream shook the whole Wing, with me being in the epicenter. I managed to keep my balance and tried escaping. A force stopped me. An intense pull grabbed my jacket from behind.

Turned around to discover the headed ghost of nurse Nancy. Her small body got supernatural strength and sent me flying over the desk. Hit against the wall before falling face first to the ground.

Turned to look at my foe. She ripped her head off and threw it at me with malice laughter. Catch it. I wanted to get rid of it, but the head tried to bite my face. Extended my arms to keep the distance with the living ball. The head was strong and driven.

With the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of what the body was doing. Opened a drawer and revealed a whip. What in the ass with this psychiatrist?

SNAP!

The leather burned my left arm to a third-degree burn. A second of weakness caused by intense pinch on my arm’s nerves. One chew was enough for the head to get to my nose’s cartilage.

Screamed in pain as my nose was torn apart.

SNAP!

I didn’t believe I could handle another strike. There wasn’t one.

The gnawing head was detached from my bleeding nasal ways by a strong force.

Open my eyes to find Jack had kicked the head while swinging his axe against the nurse’s body.

His dark appearance got threads of red after the whip was used by the de-headed ghost against him.

I stood up.

He used his massive and heavy figure to carry his opponent against the bookshelf.

All books, rocks and statues fell with a thundering noise that drowned the moan of the ghoul head I kicked.

Jack punched the nurse. She attacked back, scratching.

I watched the undead battle.

Jack kicked a book towards me. A Tolkien one.

Looked at him. He groaned.

Snatched the ring from the desk. Ran away from the sharp hysterical yelling of an unstable medical provider and the deep breathing of a psycho who multiple times before had attempted to murder me.

Turned back. The evil nurse rushed towards me. Jack slowed her down. I continued with my task.

The nurse’s whip rolled around Jack’s neck.

I hit the incinerator’s start button.

“You always deserved punishment!” The ghostly voice rumbled the building.

Opened the trapdoor downward as the heat flew out of the wall.

“You are an evil…”

The ghoul’s idea was interrupted when I threw the ring into the incinerator.

The nurse started to burn in flames.

Jack got out of the whip.

Pain shriek.

Jack lifted his axe.

My eardrums and the swollen wooden walls cracked a little.

Jack’s weapon came down.

I kneeled.

The flame-covered nurse’s head rolled towards me before disappearing with her body. Not even ectoplasmic ashes remained.

I lifted my head. Jack’s red burning eyes stared at me while I attempted to recover my breath and hearing. His head nodded slightly, barely noticeable.

His dark figure got lost under the shadows of the room.

Exhausted, I laid on the floor. Fell asleep.