As he was looking over the massive graveyard, Mark spotted an old house and what looked like a small chapel farther down the cemetery road. Perhaps whoever lived in the house could help. Mark got into his car and drove slowly along the winding road until he reached the house.
The house looked much like a large farmhouse. It was two stories tall, with a wide porch that spanned the front and one side. As he got closer, he saw a sign in front.
The clock on the dashboard showed 4:45. Mark got out and went up to the front door. He tried the knob, but it was locked. He knocked and waited a moment, but no one answered. ‘Oh, well,’ he thought. ‘I tried.’
Mark headed back to his car and started to get inside when he stopped. The small chapel had come into his view, and for some reason he felt drawn to it. He shut the car door and walked toward the chapel. It wasn’t a very big building, but its short steeple gave away the building’s purpose. Mark walked up a cobblestone pathway to the front of the church. He mounted two concrete steps, recently refurbished, and twisted the knob on the double front door. It turned. Mark pulled the door and it opened. He only opened it a couple of inches, then stopped. Though he was drawn to the building, he felt like an intruder. He stood there for a moment, the door barely open. Something was pulling him to go inside, but an equally powerful force cautioned him to stay away. Mark shut the door, but he didn’t leave. He sat down on the step, looking back out at the peaceful cemetery. He began to sob.
Mark pulled into the parking lot of a bar he had spotted when they first arrived at the old mental hospital. He looked across the street, where a sign adorned the wrought iron fence of the State Mental Hospital, warning trespassers to keep out.
Mark walked over to the entrance to the bar. Before going inside, he looked back across the street. The hospital lights were visible in the distance beyond the fence. He went inside.
The small bar was almost empty. Mark grabbed a table near the wall.
Two old-timers sat nearby. One of the guys had a scraggly, grey beard, and the other had long, gray hair.
The waitress stepped up to Mark. “What’ll it be?”
Mark barely glanced at her. “Jack and Coke. And a Bud.”
As she turned away, Mark turned his attention to the conversation the old-timers were having. He couldn’t help but overhear.
“…turning the rooms into some kind of apartments,” the bearded man said.
“It’s closing for sure, then?” the other man said.
The bearded man nodded. “I’m thinkin’ about gettin’ one.”
“You’re nuts,” the long-haired man said.
The bearded man slapped the table: “Then I oughta’ feel right at home,” he said loudly. Both men broke into uproarious laughter.
When their laughter died down, the bearded man got serious. “The price is right, though. I’m really thinkin’ about it. Getting’ too old to mow grass and shovel snow.”
The long-haired man shook his head. “But you know what went on there? No way I’d set foot in that place, let alone live there.”
Mark looked out through the large window in the front of the bar at the hospital in the distance. He turned to the old timers: “Excuse me, but are you talking about the hospital?”
The long-haired man answered. “Yes sir. They’re shuttin’ it down. Gonna’ turn it into apartments.”
Mark got up and stepped over to the table where the men were sitting. He turned a chair to face the men and sat down. “You’ve been around here a while, I take it?”
“Lived just up the street for most our lives,” the bearded man said.
“So you know about the hospital? I heard you say something about what went on in there.”
Both men looked at each other, then back at Mark. Their foreheads wrinkled and eyes more focused than before. The laughter was gone from their eyes.
“Why you needin’ to know?” the bearded man asked.
Mark knew he had made them suspicious. He needed to quell their fears if he were to get them to spill anything they knew about the hospital. “Sorry,” Mark said. “I’m a reporter. We’re doing a story on the hospital.”
“That oughta’ be somethin’,” the long-haired man said, still looking suspiciously at Mark.
The waitress brought Mark’s drinks, and put them down in front of him.
Mark knew one sure-fire way to gain these men’s confidence. He turned to the waitress:
“Another round for my friends, here. Put it on my tab.”
“Well, hell, yeah,” the bearded man said. He shook Mark’s hand. “Thanks. I’m Chuck. This here’s Willie. What kinda’ story you doin’?”
“Just the history of the place. What do you know about it?” Mark asked, shaking both Chuck and Willie’s hands.
“All kinda’ weird stuff, least ways that’s what I heard,” Willie said.
“Now, you ain’t gonna’ screw up my bid on the apartment with your story, are you?” Chuck asked.
“This can be off the record if you want. No names,” Mark said.
“Allrighty, then,” Chuck said as the waitress delivered their beers.
“I lived closer, just across the street,” Willie said as he took a drink of his beer, foam coating his upper lip. He wiped it off with his sleeve. “They was some nights I heard screamin’. Screamin’ all night long. Wailin and moanin’. All night.”
“Remember that night we sneaked into the place?” Chuck asked, laughing.
“Heck yeah,” Willie said. “We was kids, no more’n thirteen. Long time ago. It was late at night. We tried lookin’ in the windows.”
“We could see in most of ‘em,” Chuck added. “Not much to tell.”
“But the wailin’…” Willie said. “Sceer ya’ to your bones. That was all comin’ out of the little buildin’ in the back. We went down there, too. That building had bars on all the windows.”
We tried lookin’ in ‘em,” Chuck said. “Couldn’t see in, though. Windows was all taped up.”
“A little light out of the corners, but that was all,” Willie said.
Mark knew he had hit a gold mine. He just needed to keep these guys talking. He waved at the waitress, motioned in a circle with his hand. The universal sign for ‘another round’.
Chuck took another long drink from his beer. He shook his head. “The wailin’ though. It was plain frightnin’.”
“Enough to keep a kid up all night,” Willie said.
Both of the men got quiet. Mark could tell they were remembering, reliving the scary nights they spent as teens listening to the screams of the patients.
As the next round of drinks arrived, Mark tried to jostle the men out of their silence. “I wonder what happened to all the patients?”
“Turned a lot of ‘em loose back in the eighties, I think,” Chuck said. “I remember some of them poor souls wandering the streets, not knowin’ what to do nor where to go.”
“I heard some of ‘em ended up at a nursin’ home. Up near Springfield,” Willie said.
“Yep, I heard that, too. Them’s what they couldn’t fix enough to cut loose,” Chuck said.
“You know the name of the nursing home?” Mark asked.
“Don’t recall,” Chuck said. “It’s up on Route Four, though.”
“Pretty sure,” Willie agreed.
Mark and Ellen pulled up in front of the old, but well-kept, nursing home. They stepped out of the car and Ellen retrieved the camera from the back seat.