FICTION BY ALICE BABUREK

Alice Baburek is an avid reader, determined writer and animal lover. She lives with her wife and four canine companions. Retired, she challenges herself to become an unforgettable emerging voice.

THE STORY
by Alice Baburek

The frigid air felt as though it seeped into her bones. The wintry wind swirled the fallen snow that covered the ground. A shiver ran down her spine.

Cora Bexley placed several roses on each snow-covered grave. Her eyes were clouded with tears. It had been five years since her mother passed. And it had been twenty years since the death of her father. Yet, she could still see her ageless parents through the eyes of a child, memories of happier times when life was simple.

“It doesn’t get easier. You just learn to tolerate the pain,” came a male voice. Cora’s head snapped to the right and she stood up from her crouched position. A tall man, with his hands shoved in his jean pockets, forced a half smile. The leather jacket hugged his lean body. His black hair was meticulously styled, and his smooth-shaven face was tinged pink from the cold.

“I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ve seen you here before. I mean…I guess that sounds creepy. I’ll leave you alone.” The man turned to leave. 

“Wait!” called Cora. She had no idea why she asked the man not to leave. “You’re right…it doesn’t get any easier. The pain of losing someone you love…I guess it never really goes away.”

“I lost my wife four years ago in a car accident. She’s buried right up on the hill.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. My parents are gone.” She glanced about. “And I don’t like cemeteries.”

The snow began to fall harder. Snowflakes fell on top of the man’s head. She thought it made him look as though he wore a mosaic of rhinestones and she found it appealing.

He took a step closer. “I’m Brian Larkin.”

“Cora Bexley.”

“Nice to meet you, Cora. Well…I guess I’ll be on my way.” He gave a two-finger salute and started toward the car at the top of the hill.

She said nothing but felt a loss that she couldn’t explain; another loss besides that of her parents. Yet, she realized that he was only a stranger and nothing more. It was ridiculous to have any expectations from this chance encounter.

But then, after taking only a few steps, Brian abruptly stopped and looked over his shoulder. “You…you wouldn’t be interested in grabbing a cup of coffee, would you, Cora? Tom’s Diner is right down the road.”

She hoped her happiness did not show on her face. “Why not? I’ll meet you there.”

“That’s just great!” he told her.

And with that, Cora had a date.

*****

Several months passed quickly as Cora and Brian spent a lot of time together. It would seem the two of them were kindred souls. Both agree to proceed slowly with their new relationship.

Cora reviewed her notes from her latest assignment—the opening of the new grocery outlet. She sighed. Her journalist skills seemed to be on hold. Tired of local community stories, Cora yearned to demonstrate the knowledge obtained with her four-year journalism degree. Serious reporting that would have a positive impact on readers. It would give her purpose and a place in the world of journalism.

John Lance, her editor and boss, scratched his head. The aging man leaned back in his worn chair. He listened again to her instance for a story with substance. Cora understood that her boss knew of her impressive credentials, but he explained to her many times that this was a small town, not New York City. The locals loved the fluff stories. He wrote the “important” stuff himself.

“Please, John, I know there’s a story out there just for me. I’ve been here over three years. Let me show you why you hired me in the first place.”

John sat up straight in his chair. “I’ll give you a chance. Find a story that has teeth and prove yourself. You do that and I’ll give you more opportunities in the future.”

Cora thought about it. Since it was a small town, not many big stories about robberies or murders happened very often…but then she thought: murder. She realized that she knew a place where not one, but many murders had happened. Sure, they happened a long time ago, but what if she found new clues? Or what if she found that this place was haunted? Why, that would knock this town’s socks off.

*****

Cora glanced over at Brian as she drove the Chevy Impala. In the passenger seat, he was busy reading the contents of the folder. She merged onto the freeway and headed south away from Laurel Township. With light traffic, they should reach their destination within forty-five minutes.

“Well, what do you think?” asked Cora. She snatched her sunglasses from the visor. It was a beautiful spring day across Maryland—no rain in the forecast. The weather uplifted her mood and made her feel optimistic about the challenges that lay ahead.

“I think this story has some meat to it,” Brian said. “I remember reading about the Forest Haven Asylum and the inhuman atrocities committed inside its dreary walls.” He closed the folder on his lap. “I get your idea, and I think it’s a good one. Running the story on the anniversary of Forest Haven’s closure is smart thinking.”

Cora beamed. Brian was always free with compliments, and she appreciated that quality about him. Their feelings deepened as they spent more time together. She felt at ease with his reserved outlook and his sensitivity to her career. 

She was eager to arrive and explore the abandoned medical facility, yet its history was sobering. Despite her bravado to her editor, she didn’t want to go there alone. “I’m just glad you could come with me.” She gave him a quick wink. He laid his hand gently on her thigh.

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable if you were checking this place on your own.”

“We make a good team.” She squeezed his hand that was still resting on her thigh. “This should be interesting. I hope it’s good enough to make a great article. I don’t want to completely embellish it. I want this place to really make an impression on me so I can write an exciting story.”

Forest Haven Asylum was nestled deep within the woods and opened its doors in 1925. It was situated on three hundred acres of farmland, making it creepy in its isolation. At its peak, it housed over a thousand patients. How many had died there? And the murders; were they reality or just rumors? Perhaps she could approach her article as a ghost story. She would have to take photos at odd angles to enhance the gloominess of the place. She figured that it shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish since the asylum had been abandoned and decaying since 1999.

Cora pulled up to the iron gate where a faded sign hung. “Private Property—Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted—Monitored by State Police.”

She figured that the State Police didn’t come here very often, if at all.

Brian immediately stepped out of the car. He pushed open the heavy gate. It moaned in protest. He waved Cora on. Slowly she inched onto the derelict grounds of the asylum, passing through a tall razor wire fence that loomed high above. It stood nearly ten feet in all directions. The unkempt grounds were overgrown with trees and grass.

Brian opened the car door and got back in as she drove toward the main building. “One could ask if the barbed wire was to keep the public out, or was it to keep the patients in?”

Cora had a foreboding sense of sadness. She had read in detail about the horrible mistreatment of many of the patients sentenced to Forest Haven Asylum. For many of those patients, it was a life sentence. She had researched the place on the internet and also in the town’s library. All in all, it was a very sad place. She wondered if she could capture the misery in her article and photographs.

She parked in front of the main building. Both she and Brian were quiet as they studied the old primary structure. She had an unsettled feeling.

Etched in stone above the rustic entrance were the words “Welcome to Forest Haven Asylum” as if it held the excitement of a summer retreat. When the institution was open, admission to this ghastly asylum was through these doors.

Suddenly, what had seemed like a lark became a dark and foreboding excursion. Cora had an irrational feeling that she was disturbing something that didn’t want to be disturbed. Her stomach churned. The horrors harbored behind these walls had been unbearable and cruel. Cora wondered if Brian felt the same way, because neither one of them was in a hurry to go inside the main building. The couple still did not make any effort to get out of the car.

Brian finally said what Cora figured they were both thinking, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

She bit the inside of her cheek as she thought, Why do I feel so apprehensive? She had begged her boss for a chance. And here it was. But although she had seen photos of this place on the internet, once here, the spooky impact of the place hit her because it was worse than any photo. In person, it was not just the appearance of the place; it was the feeling about it.

Cora made the decision. “Let’s go.” They both stepped out of the car and she opened her backpack to retrieve her Nikon camera to snap a few photos of the main building. She glanced at the digital images to make sure each photo was sharp with detail.

A shadow was visible in the photograph of the large window. A silhouette of a dark figure appeared at the corner. Cora jumped and looked at the actual window. No dark figure. But she was excited that her photo made it appear that someone was inside this creepy place. It would do wonderfully for her article, even if it was just a play of the light.

They stepped to the front of the building and stopped at the double doors that barred their entry. The doors were padlocked shut, but the metal hook holding the lock was so rusted that it came apart in Brian’s hand. He managed to free the jammed doors. A thundering groan of rustic hinges echoed in the dimly lit entry way.

The sunlight from the open doors penetrated the gloom of its interior. The intense smell of rot and decay greeted them as they stepped inside the main hall. Vintage light fixtures covered in gossamer cobwebs hung from the water-stained ceiling. Leaves and debris littered the corridor. There was a big wooden front desk and chairs placed against the walls.

“Nice place for the furry creatures to come inside to nest,” mumbled Brian. “The offices are probably down the hall. Maybe we’ll get lucky and there still might be patient records you can photograph.”

“Lead the way,” Cora said. Brian moved slowly until he reached the first door. It was marked ‘Administrative Office’ in faded black lettering.

Brian said, “I think we might have hit pay dirt.” And without waiting for a reply, he turned the tarnished knob and stepped in. Cora turned to snap another photograph of the dingy hallway. Suddenly, she was aware that the door slammed shut with Brian inside.

“Brian!” Cora screamed. She tried to open it, but it did not budge. She pounded with the palm of her fist.

*****

Startled by slamming door, Brian grabbed the round knob. It would not turn. He could hear Cora’s voice faintly through the closed door. An empty feeling crept into the pit of his stomach. Slowly, he turned around.

A strip of sunlight seeped through the ragged, torn curtains which cast eerie shadows on the peeling paint. Patches of obvious mold clung to the sagging walls. A noxious odor permeated the room, constricting his lungs. He bent over and gasped for air. He wondered if the mold on the walls was the dangerous kind.

He straightened up and looked around. He was confident he could get out of the room, but in the meantime, he studied it.

Disintegrated patients’ records littered the grimy floor. A battered wheelchair tilted on its broken caster. Someone had yanked open rusty metal drawers from the tall file cabinets that once housed irrefutable secrets and dumped many on the floor. The room pulsed with horrors of yesterday.

But those were not the worst things to see in this old, deserted room. He began to see visions that corresponded to the past. He knew these were hallucinations, maybe brought on by inhaling mold spores. Otherwise, he couldn’t rationalize what he saw.

Brian’s mind scrambled with shocking images. Filthy, stained nightgowns clinging to emaciated men and women. Discolored skin pulled tight across their protruding bones. Sunken eye sockets and tortured mouths forming words no one could hear.

The phantoms moved independently from him, as though they had no idea he was in the room. They ignored him but they seemed to acknowledge each other. Brian counted five ghostly entities.

He jerked himself into action. He backed up to the closed door and tried to turn the knob with all his strength. It did not budge. Using his shoulder, he threw himself at the sealed door. From the impact, he staggered backwards. To his surprise, the stuck door eased open on its own. Without hesitation, Brian burst out, almost knocking Cora off her feet.

*****

She reached out to steady him. “Brian! Are you okay? What happened?”

His breathing seemed labored. “I don’t really know for sure. I thought I saw things. Awful things. I know, crazy, right? Cora, they seemed so real. They were patients. Listen, there’s mold on the walls in there and so there’s probably spores in the air. I breathed it in. I think that’s why I saw—well—ghosts. Are you sure you want to go in there?”

Cora felt torn. She knew Brian had experienced something disturbing behind the door. His face was pallid and his hands clammy. Fear can be good and bad. She realized that she had to make a choice. She could insist they leave or insist they stay. And if they stayed, the only option would be to press on.

She chose her ambitions.

Cora wrapped her arms around his waist and held Brian tight. He rested his head on top of hers and gently kissed it. He trusted her, she knew. He would do whatever she chose. They slowly released one another. She saw him search her loving eyes. He was afraid. But she knew she could not walk away.

She asked, “Are you ready? Let’s give these tortured souls a voice. They need to be heard. And we’re just the ones to do it.”

Again she studied his face carefully. She did not tell him that she was too afraid to proceed alone. If he wouldn’t come with her, she would not enter the room. She relaxed when she saw him smile. A wan smile perhaps, but still a smile.

Brian stepped back inside the office. If there had ever been ghosts in here, they were gone now.

Cora followed behind. Her nose tingled from the moldy smell, but she tried to ignore it. Quickly she moved to search the file cabinet drawers that were scattered over the floor. Most of the drawers were empty except for one. It contained several sheets of weathered paper. She grabbed the documents and shoved them inside her backpack.

“Let’s move fast,” Brian told her. His eyes darted across the unwelcoming room. “We don’t want to breathe this air too long.”

“I have the files, at least, the ones that remained behind. Let’s get out of this room and check out the rest of this building.”

They moved cautiously through the filthy hallway. Dried up leaves from past seasons crunched under their feet. Crusty, rotting, soiled bandages lay in heaps, stripped from wounds that never healed. Cora noted that time and neglect aided in the loss of brick and wood of the once prestigious institution.

A foul smell lingered in the air, different from the ones in the Administration Office. It didn’t smell dangerous; only stale and old.

It was not long before they came to the first closed door. Cora was surprised when it opened easily. Brian stood close behind. “It looks as if this room was used as an examination room.” He gave a quick nod.

Peeling paint and outdated equipment littered the dirty broken ceramic tiles. Dusty brown bottles of anesthetic lay strewn on the dented metal table. Stained and torn mattresses sat on rustic mangled springs. Leather and rope restraints hung from the bed frames to demonstrate the unspeakable cruelty once committed within these deteriorating walls.

Slowly they made their way inside. Pieces of shattered glass crunched under their feet. Cora immediately snapped several pictures of the depressed room. And then something caught Cora’s eye: a picture frame holding a faded picture behind cracked glass.

Brian turned to leave but she stopped him. “Wait a second.”

She quickly bent over to retrieve her find: a black-and-white photograph of a man sitting on a chair. His unsmiling face stared back at the camera. Short dark hair sat on his oddly shaped head. The clothes he wore were too small for his lanky body. The sleeves of the shirt barely reached his thin wrists. And the pants were cropped above his knobby knees.

The photo looked like it might have been taken in the turn of the century…the turn of the last century.

Cora dropped the photo to the floor, then realized she could use it for her story. As she picked it up once again, she noticed that the man was no longer sitting in the chair. He was standing and pointing at her. A shriek escaped her lips and she threw the photo down again.

“What is it, Cora?” Brian asked. 

“I thought I saw something weird in that photo.”

“This place…it makes people see things. It happened to me when I was stuck in the Admin room.”

“Listen,” Cora said. “Let’s get out of this room. I’ve already taken all the photos I need from it.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Both remained silent as they investigated three other rooms. The dilapidated appearance and foul smell surpassed any thoughts of staying an extended amount of time.

“What about the other buildings?” Brian forced a half smile.

“The dormitory and cafeteria buildings are deemed unsafe and unstable. Sections of the roofs have caved in. I’ll take photos of the outside. There’s probably not much to see even if we did get in somehow. I say let’s finish exploring the main building as much as we can.”

Brian gestured for Cora to lead the way. At the end of the debris-covered hallway was a crooked door coated in red paint.

“That’s odd. Why would this door be painted a different color than all the rest?” Cora glanced back at Brian. He shrugged his shoulders.

Without hesitation, she pushed forward and opened the door. A low creak whined in the stagnant air. “Let’s get some light in here.” Cora pulled a flashlight out of her backpack. Its bright beam encompassed a large portion of the room.

A rotted wood desk and tattered swivel chair had been pushed up against the wall. Empty slanting bookshelves revealed filth and decay, but no books.

“What in heaven’s name?” Brian pointed to a chair with straps on the arms and legs. Cora handed him the flashlight as she photographed the few pieces of furniture.

“Let’s check the desk for any patient records.” Brian searched the side drawers. “I found something.” There were several sheets of handwritten notes. He began to read them but abruptly stopped. “You might want to see this, Cora.” His hand trembled as he handed the paper to her.

A prickling sensation crept up her spine. Brian held the light so Cora could read. It was a detailed psychiatric analysis on a patient and the prescribed treatments used to remedy the individual’s abnormal afflictions.

Cora’s mind was appalled by such archaic means that the papers outlined. What the patients endured was beyond frightening; it was sadistic. Her stomach twisted. Her eyes filled with tears. It was inhumane, to say the least. “Brian, this place and the people who worked here were evil.”

She heard an immense gasp from Brian. She whirled to look at him. His eyes fixated on the dark recess of the room. Cora’s gaze followed his shaky hand. Her eyes narrowed. Something in the shadows moved.

“What is…that?” whispered Cora. Brian blinked his eyes. Slowly, he turned the flashlight on the unwanted visitor.

The grotesque manifestation floated inches above the ground. Ragged strips of blacken cloth hung off its skeletal features. Bluish veins pulsated beneath the bone-white skin. The mouth warped in a gruesome scream. Soulless eyes seemed devoid of an inner being.

It slowly moved toward them. Brian gave Cora a slight push toward the open door. She took one step back. Her eyes fixated on the ghostly apparition. Could this spirit be the man in the photo?

All of a sudden, the unearthly form lunged at Brian. He fell backwards onto the grimy floor. The flashlight rolled toward Cora. Instantly, she bent down and took hold of it. She held it up.

The full beam penetrated the phantom which loomed above Brian. Cora lowered her voice to a whisper. “Brian, get up and run!”

But Brian did not move. His body lay rooted to the floor below the menacing presence.

Her heart raced. In desperation, she called, “Wait! Please…don’t hurt him! We want to help you!”

Suddenly, as if understanding her plea, the supernatural entity hovered in place. Slowly, the misshapen skull twisted to look at her. She had an eerie understanding; it was as though she could meld with the apparition’s thoughts. She felt she could peer into the dark window of its very being.

Cora’s voice trembled. “I know what they did to you…and the others. Unspeakable acts of cruelty. The suffering you and others endured is beyond comprehension. They were wrong to do what they did. Please…I can try to bring some type of justice to all the victims at Forest Haven. Give me a chance…give us a chance.”

The dark spirit backed away from them both and Cora could hear its message in her mind, even though nothing was spoken: “I was tortured to death by Dr. Ludolph Wilhelm. He conducted illegal experiments on me and other patients. He must be punished,” spoke the apparition in her mind in a spine-tingling, raspy voice that could have been leaves blowing in the wind.

“I understand.”

The ghost disappeared.

*****

Cora sat behind her desk with the open laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.

Forest Haven opened its doors in 1925 as a prestigious hospital intended to educate children and adults with intellectual disabilities with useful life skills. Instead, it became an institution that harbored some of the most horrendous atrocities committed within its dooming walls that could never be erased. But they should not be forgotten either.

This story will expose the horrors.