My Probation Consists of Guarding an Abandoned Asylum | Part 6

 

Part 5 | Part 7

As soon as Alex delivered me the gauss and ointment for the empty first aid kit, that I had ordered almost a month ago (if I may say so), I used them to take care of my arm’s burns until now only relieved by slightly cold water. Alex watched me as if I was a desperate, starving animal in a zoo. Pain prevents you from feeling humiliated or offended.

“Hey, I was meaning to ask you…” he started.

I nodded at him while mummifying my arms with the vendages.

“Does the lighthouse still works?”

“Not know. Never been there,” I answered.

“Oh, well, Russel sent you this.”

He extended his arm holding a note from the boss.

It read: “Make sure to use the chain and lock to keep shut the Chappel. R.”

I looked back at Alex, confused, as he dropped those provisions on the floor. What a coincidence those ones arrived almost immediately.

***

They didn’t work. The chain had very small holes in its links. No matter how I tried to push through the sturdy lock, it just didn’t fit. Gave up. Went back to the mop holding the gates of the only holy place in the Bachman Asylum.

After failing on my task, the climate punished me with a storm. I tried blocking some of the broken windows with garbage bags to prevent the rain flooding the place, but nature was unavoidable.

Found a couple half rotten wooden boards lifting from the floor like a creature opening its jaws. Broke them. Attempted to use them to block some of the damaged glass. I prioritized the one in my office and the management one on Wing C. It appeared to have the most important information, and was in a powered part of the building, making it a fire hazard.

After my futile endeavor, I also failed to dry myself with the soaking towel I had over my shoulders. Getting the excess water off my eyes allowed me to notice, for the first time, that at the end of Wing C was a broken window, with the walls and ceiling around it burnt black.

CRACKLE!

A lightning entered through the small window and caused the until-one-second-ago flooded floor to catch flames.

Shit.

Fire started to reach the walls.

Grabbed the extinguisher.

Blazes imposed unimpressed at my plan as they were reaching the roof.

Took out the safety pin.

Pointed.

Shoot.

Combustion didn’t stop.

The just-replaced extinguisher never used before was empty.

I ventured hitting the disaster with my wet towel to make it stop.

Failed.

The inferno made the towel part of it.

All was lost.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

A ghost was carrying a water bucket in his hands. I barely saw him as he was swallowed by the fire. His old gown became burning confetti flying up due to the heat. I watched in shock how he emptied the bucket on the exact spot the bolt had hit.

A hissing sound and vapor replaced the flames that were covering the end of Wing C.

The apparition was still there. Standing. His scorched skin produced steam and a constant cracking. He turned back at me. A dry, old and tired voice came out of the spirit’s mouth.

“Please.”

My chills were interrupted by the bucket thrown at me by the specter. Dodged it. Ghoul dashed in my direction. Did the same away from it.

When I thought I had lost him, a wall of scalding mist appeared in front of me. Hit my eyes and hands. Red and painful.

A second haze came to existence to my left. Rushed through the stairs of the Wing C tower. The only way I could still pass.

The phantom kept following me. I extended my necklace that had protected me before. Nothing. Almost mocking me, the burnt soul kept approaching. I kept retrieving.

In the top of the tower there was nowhere else to go. The condensation produced by the supernatural creature filtered through the spiral stairs I had just tumbled with. The smell of toasted flesh hijacked the atmosphere. My irritated eyes teared up.

Took the emergency exit: jumped from a window.

Hit the Asylum’s roof. Crack. Ignore it. Rolled with a dull, immobilizing-threating pain on my whole left side.

The figure stared at me from the threshold I just glided through. Please, just give me little break in the unforgiven environment.

The ghost leaped. The bastard poorly landed, almost losing its balance, a couple feet away from me.

Get up and ran towards Wing D. The specter didn’t give me a break.

When I arrived, I stopped. Catch my breath.

Attacker glared at me. Hoped my plan would work.

“Hey! Come and get me!” I yelled at the son of a bitch.

The nude crisp body charged against me.

Took a deep breath.

When my skin first sensed the heat, I rolled to my side. The non-transcendental firefighter stopped. Not fast enough. Fell face first through the hole in the roof of the destroyed Wing D.

Splash!

Silence, just rain falling.

After a couple seconds, I leaned to glimpse at the undead body half submerged in the water flooding the floor.

The stubborn motherfucker turned around and floated back to the roof where I had already speed away from the angry creature.

He appeared ghostly hazes of ectoplasmic steam that made me sweat immediately all the fluids I had left in my body. Like the Red Sea, the vapor headed me to the Wing C tower. Again. Slowly followed the suggestion.

CRACKLE!

Another thunderbolt fell from the sky and impacted in the now-red cross in top of the column. The electricity ran down through a hanging wire that led to the broken window at the end of the hall. Hell broke loose, literally, as the fire started again.

I shared an empathy bonding glance with the ghost. Rushed towards the fire-provoking obelisk.

The phantom tagged along as I ran up again to the top of the tower. Get out of the window and pulled myself to the top of the ceiling. The water weighed five times my clothes and the intense heat from below complicated my ascension. I got up.

Ripped the cable from the metal, still-burning cross.

I used my weight and soaked jacket to push the religious lightning rod in top of the forgotten building. The fire-extinguisher soul watched me closely. I screamed at the unmoving metal as I started to feel the warmth. Kept pushing. Bend a little. Rain poured from the sky blocking all my senses but touch. Hotness never went away.

The metal cross broke out of its place. A third lightning hit it. Time slowed down.

I was grabbing the cross with both hands and falling back due to inertia when the electricity started running through my body. The bolt had nowhere to go but me. Pass through my chest, lungs and heart. Would’ve burned me to crisp before I fell over the ceiling of Wing C again. Electric tingle in my diaphragm and bladder. Made peace with destiny and let myself continue falling with the cross still on my hands. The bolt reached the end of the line on my legs.

The dead man touched me in my ankle.

I smashed against the ceiling and rolled to see the ghost descending into flames, taking the last strike of the involuntary lightning rod with him.

He disappeared with the fire when he hit the ground.

***

While falling I realized the cross was surprisingly thin for how strong it was. Also, it felt like the building wanted it to be kept there no matter what.

It was slim enough to go through the chain links and work as a rudimentary lock for the unexplored and now-blocked Chappel.

Contempt with the improvement from the cleaning supply I was using before, I checked my task list. “5. Control the fires on Wing C.”

Seems like I will have a peaceful night.