Desolate

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Someone shoved Westley Roberts.

Hard.

Arms pinwheeling, he stumbled forward, the toe of his right boot creeping over the edge of the jagged floorboard. The hole in the floor stretched before him like the gaping maw of a hungry beast waiting to swallow him whole. Three stories below Westley saw the broken remains of the first and second floors laying in a rubble heap in the basement. The last thing he wanted to do was join shattered tiles and other detritus, but for a split second he saw himself tumbling through the air Alice in Wonderland style before coming to an untimely end.

Quick reflexes saved him as Westley fell on a combination of training and habit, sinking his weight down through his heels. The shift prompted him to rock back, saving him from the fall. Still, his heart momentarily lodged in his throat as his brain provided images of him splayed with limbs contorted in unnatural ways, another one had him mimicking a bug behind glass in a museum collection. He took a few steps back, putting distance between himself and the threat of doom.

Then he remembered.

Someone pushed him.

Westley whirled around, finding the hall exactly as he expected it to be.

Empty.

Of course, the perpetrator could have easily ducked into any of the numerous patient rooms flanking the corridor, many of the doors opened, inviting the unwitting in, but Westley knew no amount of searching would turn up anyone. An entirely new spark of fear blossomed in his chest. A chill passed over him, the tiny hairs on his arms standing on end. He began to look at the abandoned hospital in a new way, with a different perspective.

It was dank, smelled of mold and soggy wood with a hint of what Westley could only liken to old library books forgotten on the back shelves. The paint was chipped and cracked in some spots, stained and likely teaming with yuck. He probably should have worn a mask, potentially breathing in death spores with each inhale. He had encountered loose tiles and worn through carpeting. Not to mention the leftover bits and bobs that seemed to accompany every abandoned property, those things left behind that made him wonder why, like what appeared to be patient files in a downstairs office.

It was almost like the residents, doctors and patients alike, just stopped existing. There one minute, poof, gone the next.

With the exception of whatever laid hands on him. There was little doubt in his mind the shove came from the other side of the veil, from hands long gone and no longer corporeal. The more he dwelled on it, on the fleeting touch, the more certain he grew of a coldness accompanying it. Ghosts were nothing new in his life, but none of them had ever reached out in such a manner, as if to cause him harm. Almost like the departed wanted him to join them. A knot formed in his stomach. What a wholly unpleasant thought.

Gooseflesh broke out along his arms, the unmistakable feeling of being watched creeping over him.

Westley’s heart skipped a beat as he heard a whisper. One that sounded very much like someone drawing out his name, tasting the syllables as though they were unfamiliar.

Wweessttlleeyy.

Again, he turned, his focus shifting to the end of the hall, a place beyond the hole and therefore unreachable by any means he could see. Unless one of the doors concealed a stairwell, which while totally plausible, his gut told him otherwise. Directly across from him was a window, complete with bars and smeared with grime by the passage of time, and trying to see outside reminded him of gazing through murky waters. Morning light failed to filter in.

So how was it the shadows seemed to be moving?

Westley opened his mouth, planning to call out a friendly, perhaps shaky, hello to see if maybe there was someone there. The word died on his lips, his voice failing him. What if speaking out provoked it further, brought it back? Sometimes letting spirits in on his secret went about as well as lighting a campfire in the driving rain. The ability to be seen, to be heard, after years of silence and loneliness, Westley understood. Didn’t necessarily mean he cared for it, though.

Some spirits were okay.

Some were not.

And he was getting the feeling the ghost—how can there possibly only be one in a place like this—darkening the end of the hall was anything but friendly. This was the point in the horror movie he usually told the character on screen to leave, just turn around and leave. In his mind he could hear the building tempo of the music, his heart rate creeping up with each beat.

A rational voice chimed in suggesting the movement was nothing more than a trick of sunlight and a gentle breeze tickling the trees outside. Just because he couldn’t see out the window in front of him didn’t mean the same could be said for the ones within the surrounding rooms. For all he knew there might be broken panes allowing the light to filter in and make weird shapes.

More movement, this time near one of the doors. Had someone peered around the frame to glance at him, quickly ducking back out of sight? Or were his mind and eyes, fed by the underlying fear buzzing through his veins, working in cahoots to trick him? Westley took a step forward, drawn to the room, almost positive he saw someone, something, and what was on the door?

He edged closer to the hole, transfixed, squinting in an attempt to make out the details. Could it be graffiti from years ago and worn to undistinguishable marks before the floor gave ‘way? Then again, how much graffiti had he encountered by this point? Most abandoned places were rife with it, but this one sat untouched, unmarked as though completely forgotten by time. He peered closer, leaning slightly forward. Were they in fact claw marks like his brain hinted at?

By now Westley’s heart beat in a rapid staccato, the world around him seeming to slow and fade away until all he saw were those thin gouges, for he was certain that’s what they were, in the distant door. What could have made them? He doubted a dog was strong enough, and did they even get bears this far south in Wisconsin? If he looked at the pile of rubble again, would he spy the corpse of their creator decomposing down below?

Unaware he was doing it, Westley stepped in their direction, moving as though in a trance. A sliver of tile dangling on the precipice fell away, landing with a clatter. His hand went out, fingertips brushing against the dryness of the nearest wall, completely oblivious to the fat spider just centimeters away, its bulbous black abdomen undulating.

Wweesstt…

Beckoning, the voice was enticing him, one step at a time. In some distant part of his mind alarm bells started going off, the primal need to survive deeply rooted within, disturbed by what was transpiring. The floor under his feet creaked, uncomfortably loud in the otherwise two-story tomb of brick, unimaginable horrors locked within its walls. He could hear them now, the tortured pleas of the mentally insane. Felt them seeping into his pores, their hysteria slowly tugging him into their deluded world. He began to feel detached, floating just outside his body. He saw himself lick his lips, yet failed to feel the wetness of his tongue upon them.

The term out of body experience flashed across his mind.

Westley. This time a sinister tone clipped with a maddening laugh. Westley.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder.

Westley cried out.