My Probation Consists of Guarding an Abandoned Asylum | Part 10

 

Part 9 | Part 11

RING!

I answered the wall phone from my office that doesn’t have a line, but works amazingly well when receiving calls from beyond the grave. It’s always the guy who got killed after I didn’t let him come in on my first night as guard here.

“Your only hope now is to find and take care of Jack’s rests,” I was instructed as if that meant anything. “In the morgue. Through the Chappel.”

That motherfucker hung on me. It’s not like he had better (or any other) things to do.

Yet, I was out of options or ideas.

***

Unlocked the chains I had secured with the building’s cross to keep the Chappel closed. When they hit the floor, a blow from inside the religious room spanned the doors, welcoming me. Shit.

I entered the dust and cobwebs-filled place. The moonlight that swirled through the broken stained glass allowed me to make sense of three benches, a small altar-like area with an engraved box stuck in the wall, and Jack holding his axe.

Jumped back and hid behind a bench as the axe swung. Made a dent on the back of the furniture.

I crawled away from the second blow.

I reached a long metal candle holder and wagged it against my attacker.

Jack lifted his weapon for another strike. I covered with my brass defense that surprisingly didn’t yield against the dull blade.

Pang!

Get on one knee. A fourth attempt.

Pang!

Got up.

Pang!

I started the offensive.

Pang! Pang!

Jack bashed faster and more aggressively.

Pang! Pang! Pang! PANG!

My tool flew out of my hands towards the altar area.

Cling. Clank, clank, clank, clank…

That was a lot of noise. There was someplace bigger there.

Jack grinned with satisfaction, blocking the way I came through.

I dodged another attack and rushed behind the altar. A spiral stairway led the way to an underground level. Didn’t look appealing, was far superior to Jack.

Tripped with the candle holder I failed to notice. At least it helped me to get down faster.

Get to a rock walls, ceiling and floor passageway dripping with wet salty water. At the end, a white metal door with a key on its lock.

Jack’s thumps neared.

Slammed the entryway shut to keep Jack out as I caged myself in the mysterious room. It was the morgue. It looked disturbingly clean, with white tiles covering the four walls, floor and even the ceiling with long fluorescent lights that kept the place brighter than any other room in Bachman Asylum. The metal drawers for disposing dead bodies were pristine, one of them even reflected a skeleton.

In the opposite wall was a body wearing a teared old asylum’s uniform. Nature had ripped all flesh away from the bones. Spiders and other insects had made this guy’s/girl’s remains into their home. Came closer and check the badge. “Staff.”

Ring!

Got startled by another wall phone.

Ring!

Answered it.

“That’s not the one,” I’m told by the first night trespasser…’s spirit?

Pang.

Outside, Jack banged his weapon against the door.

Pang. Pang.

This is psychological war now.

Pang.

Checked through the drawers for deceased people.

Pang!

Empty.

Pang!

Bare.

Pang!

Unoccupied.

PANG!

There’s a body in here.

PANG!

It smelled bad, but not unbearable.

PANG!

The sealed cabinet kept the big and bulky body from decomposing.

PANG!

The tag on its toe confirms his identity: Jack.

Silence. Not only from the bashing of the door. It’s like all the air stood still for a second to avoid transmitting any sound. Not even my breath, just felt it through my chest.

Turned around to find Jack’s ghoul grinning mischievous at me. His axe was high, ready to drop over me.

Jack’s weapon got pulled from behind. Is the torn ghost of the guy I encountered on my first night here. Jack lost interest in me and attacked my aiding ghost. This spirit doesn’t fight back, just got his ectoplasmic body slashed apart. It was a diversion.

I dragged Jack’s dead body out of its resting place. The axe swung up from me and bent the metal trapdoor above my head.

Towed the body out of the room and up the metallic spiral stairways that had brought me to this hell. My phantom ally was thrown against them as I reached out into the Chappel.

Pang! Pang! Pang!

Jack hit the steps with his axe.

Pang! Pang! Pang!

***

I’m thrown back seven years while walking San Quentin for the first time. All the inmates in the cells around me were busting spoons and cups against the cell bars. Pang, pang, pang, pang. The guards pushed me with their clubs. Pang, pang, pang! My future companions kept raising the intensity. Pang! Pang! Pang!

“Stop it!” I yelled. “I’m not in San Quentin anymore.”

I yelled as I turned and, with all my force and hands cuffed, I slammed the shit out of the guard.

***

I snapped back to reality. I’ve just used Jack’s body to bash his apparition self, nailing him to the floor. For the first time, Jack looked at me from the ground, angrier than ever before. Fuck.

Placed the corpse over my shoulder and, despite its weight, I ran with it across the Chappel, lobby, cafeteria into the incinerator room. I started the burning machine. Opened the trapdoor by pulling it down, and left Jack’s inert body over it, ready to throw him into oblivion.

I turned back, part of me wanted to see Jack before doing it. He was on the other side of the room. He smiled as usual. He stayed away without reason. Unusual. Something was wrong.

I pushed the dead body out of the trapdoor. A dull sound echoed as the body hit the Asylum’s wooden floor. Closed the fire breathing hole.

Jack stormed towards me.

I docked as I pulled down the incinerator’s trapdoor. Jack blasted the metal, ripping it out of its place.

I rolled away as the tremor from the metal plate I was holding shook through every bone and tendon of my surprisingly complete body.

Jack charged me again. I lifted my new-found shield.

Pang.

Jack got angrier.

Pang!

Furious.

PANG!

The oxidated razor went through my hardware.

Ring!

Knew that sound. I dropped the shield and ran towards my office.

Ring!

Jack followed me slowly, enjoying himself having me at his mercy after months of futile attempts on his part.

Pang. Pang. Pang.

Ring!

“What?” I answered my office phone.

“He is too strong for any of us alone,” said the ghost of my new ally/dead trespasser. “Let me in.”

I knew what he meant. It wasn’t pretty.

Jack’s grin elongated as he came closer to my tiny “secure” place.

“Let me in!” The phantom screamed at me through the supernatural communication device.

“Okay!”

The moment the last letter was pronounced, a strong blow puffed out of the auricular as I felt the freezing whisper of dead flew through my inner ear canal.

My hands helped my legs to stand up without me even commanding it.

Jack accelerated his pace across the hall.

My fucking feet got me moving towards my attacker. I didn’t want to. I became a passive passenger on my own body.

Jack, not used to be at the receiving end of the assault, rose his axe a moment too late, allowing my body to tackled him into the ground.

Still felt my teeth struck with the dull pain of hitting my chin against the floor. I felt lightheaded. That didn’t prevent my body from standing and continuing his way without even looking back at Jack.

In the incinerator room, I grabbed Jack’s inanimate body and, in a graceful swift, carried it over my shoulder.

Jack was behind me… us?

Pang. Pang.

Transported the cadaver to the kitchen by the pure willpower and knowledge of my possessing helper.

Pang! Pang!

Deposited the half-decomposed flesh bag filled with unarranged bones on the meat-grinding machine.

PANG!

Two inches away from the turn on button, I was pulled from my leg.

I bit the dust again.

Jack’s axe clung to my lower leg. His ectoplasmic anger was strong and dragged me towards him. His imposing body appeared to be getting bigger as close as I was getting. His mischievous smile grew to uncanny levels like a demonic Jack Nicholson. The darkness of his matter seemed like an all-swallowing void. His burning eyes fixed directly on me ripped me away from any hope I had left.

A chill blast swam through my guts, stomach, throat and got spit into the partially dismembered apparition of the guy who I’d left outside to die. He punched Jack’s unmaterial face with its phantom fist.

That set me free.

They fought a battle of the undead as I crawled back to the shedding machine.

My leg pain, exactly in my shinbone injury from when I was a kid, had paralyzed the left side of my lower self. With every pull I forced onto my body, the sharp pain pushed further into my higher organs. My screams were doing nothing to help other than accompany as a badass soundtrack the ghoulish war happening behind me.

Jack grabbed my ally’s immaterial neck.

I pressed the on button.

Gears and cracks assaulted my eardrums.

Little portions of the corpse jumped as the relentless machine that had hurt so many innocent people before was now doing the same to Jack.

Jack’s phantom apparition started to disappear into shreds.

He dropped my helper.

Jack didn’t fight it; he accepted his fate as his tormenting soul disappeared into nothingness.

***

Back in my office, I took care of my leg wound with the mediocre first aid kit that will be needing another refill. My ghostly friend accompanied me in silence.

Ring!

Answered the call.

“Sorry I got you into this,” I apologized to him.

“Jack’s now gone forever. My dead is now resolved,” he answered me with his permanent poker face.

“Yeah, ended pretty hurt,” pointed at my leg dressing.

“Don’t be a pussy, you know nothing about being seriously hurt,” told me the dead dude.

Fair enough.

“Just a heads up,” he continued, “there are still some secrets here.”

“Problem for another day.”

I hung up the phone as he faded into light with a subtle smirk.