Highland Cove

by Dylan J. Morgan

  Why did everything Alex say have to be laced with sarcasm? He turned in the doorway and exited the room. Silence thickened around Julian, the darkness deepening.

  He passed the torch light around the room a final time, observing all the seats in the hope he wouldn’t find a decomposed corpse sitting there watching him. The light settled on the fireplace, the brickwork covered with cobwebs, a solitary candlestick standing on its mantel. Loose dirt trickled in a stream down the flow protruding from the hearth, and Julian feared he’d see a skeletal hand scratching at the filth.

  Heart hammering a flash of fear through his emotions, Julian hurried from the room and into the hallway.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The female ward was just as eerie as the male ward. Perhaps she had the wrong idea about patients’ behaviour more than sixty years ago when this asylum was operational; had expected the men to be tormented and abusive, and the women to sit quietly knitting scarfs or hats. But the corridor, flanked on each side by dormitories, looked similar to the male rooms in the southern wing.

  If anything this ward was darker, with a solitary passageway running between rooms, instead of twin corridors used by the men that allowed external lighting to drain into the hallways. Here, the female patients would enjoy windows in their rooms and a view over the island’s grounds, which meant very little natural light flowed into the main hall. Most of the bedroom doors were open and electricity splayed in the clouds overhead, light pulsing in strobes through the corridor. Each time she expected to see an ashen figure standing in an open doorway, tangled hair hanging to its shoulders, a white gown darkened by waste and blood. Her imagination ran a thousand miles per hour, spinning a whirlpool of fear in her gut.

  She walked two paces behind Codie, resisting the urge to reach out and grab the back of his jacket. Their flashlights pushed thick night into deep shadow. Illuminating their path only made the rest of the corridor darker and more foreboding. The usual rubbish lay spread across the floor: compacted dirt and dead vegetation; and this time she saw a dead crow on its back, legs twisted into the air. Kristen’s light picked out a nightgown protruding from the filth, the white material blackened by dust. A slice of sadness wormed through her fear as she wondered what had made a woman discard her gown, and why no one had bothered to pick it up.

  What else lay buried beneath the debris, or hidden from view in the darkened rooms? Perhaps pictures of a world the patients had once known prior to being admitted here. Or maybe a trinket they’d held secure: a keepsake that would give them hope of better times to come. Kristen paused, glanced into the nearest room at the dull grey hue of a sullied mattress dangling off a weathered bedframe. A dresser stood against the nearest wall, its drawers pulled open, with a solitary garment of clothing hanging on one of the handles. A figure walked through the room in front of the window.

  “Jesus fucking shit!”

  Codie stopped and looked back. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

  “Oh my God, I saw someone in that room. Just there; a shadow against the window.”

  “Really?” He stepped back to her, grasped her hand. His skin was cold to the touch but his concern warmed her emotions. “It could be Liam. Stay there, let me have a look.”

  “Be careful!”

  “It’s okay.”

  Kristen pushed her back against the opposite wall, gaze fixed on the bedroom’s open doorway. She’d lost sight of the window from this angle and was glad about that. The storm’s electrical light filtered onto the wall, however, and she found herself staring into its luminance in case a shadow should slither across the wall. Lightning pulsed outside, flashing Codie’s form into a silhouette filling the doorway. She wanted to grab him and pull him clear, not let him enter the room in case something took him. Her mind reeled with terror, breath gasping in clouds of condensation. Holding the torch steady in front of him, Codie entered the bedroom and in one horrifying moment he disappeared into the black. She stood alone in the corridor, surrounded by darkness. Wind moaned down the hallway from further in the wing, the sound not unlike the tortured groan of a woman in agonizing pain.

  She glanced in that direction, fear wheezing on her breath.

  Light danced over the wall in the bedroom and she couldn’t withhold the gasp when a figure stepped into the entrance. Dropping the torch’s beam to the floor, Codie stood in the doorway a moment and smiled. She didn’t dare look over his shoulder in case she saw something lurking.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “There’s no one in there.”

  She exhaled relief, but she’d seen someone there. Waving him over, she grabbed his hand as he stepped to her. She pulled him close and kissed him.

  “Thank you for checking,” she said. “I’m sorry I freaked out.”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m kind of freaked out too; it’s dark in here and the storm isn’t helping.” He stepped away from her and looked back to the doorway. “A shame though, I’d hoped it’d been Liam in there.”

  Kristen glanced up the hallway to thicker darkness, to where the weather-beaten moan had come from. If she had a choice, she wouldn’t venture down there at all. “Perhaps he’s further in, as you suggest. Let’s keep searching.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, of course, let’s carry on.” Before I change my mind.

  He nodded, although she barely saw the movement in the gloom. He linked his fingers into hers, gave her hand a squeeze of reassurance, and took a step along the corridor. Pushing away from the wall, Kristen shot a nervous glance at the bedroom where she’d seen the figure, and then followed after Codie.

  They moved swiftly along the corridor, deeper into the ward. Occasionally Codie called out for Liam, but received no answer. He shone his torch light into bedrooms as they passed, although Kristen chose not to look inside. Sporadic lightning flashes illuminated their way, a journey accompanied by the wind’s haunting moan. At the end of the corridor they stepped into a wider area, with bench seats along one wall, a wheelchair on its side near a far window. Codie directed his torch’s beam to a sign above a large door to their left.

  “In here,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Hydrotherapy room.”

  “Hydrotherapy?”

  Codie gripped her hand and led her towards the door. “Yeah, water treatment. Patients were given cold or warm baths, or showers, depending on their diagnosed mental state. We’ll go through here and then beyond this is another hallway that’ll lead us back to the chapel.”

  She followed him, although the door itself—made of ancient wood, its skin dark and ominous—infused a stab of nervous tension in her gut.

  With the darkened hallway at her back the hairs on her neck prickled and she hurried after Codie into the room. She expected the area to be bigger, but she’d stepped into a rectangular space that stretched to another doorway. Square windows were set in the upper section of one wall, but they’d been boarded over. Some timbers had rotted and hung loose, allowing the lightning to enter in strobes to illuminate a ceiling pocked with broken tiles. Six bathtubs, fixed to the floor by large pipework, stood in a row ahead of her. Still fitted to each tub, a sheet covered the baths completely. Her torch light picked out the dark hole where the patient’s head would protrude; the once cream coloured sheets were now dirtied with grime and sections of damaged ceiling. Rubble crunched under Codie’s steps as he moved through the room, directing his light behind and below each bathtub.

  “Were people killed in this room?” Kristen asked.

  “Maybe, but Liam doesn’t think that ghosts have to be localized to the area of their death. Maybe they’re drawn to areas of great trauma in their lives. Besides, in a building such as this, they’re probably everywhere.”

  She glanced towards Codie but his attention was focused elsewhere. She wished he wouldn’t have said that; such information wasn’t going to help her nerves at all. This room was smaller than the hallway they’d walked through, it made her feel boxed in and t
rapped. Darkness wallowed deep around the baths, adding to the room’s eerie appearance. Broken shelving spilled further debris over the floor.

  “Liam!” she shouted.

  Silence answered, as though the blackness had swallowed her voice.

  Codie stepped around a bathtub, edging further into the room.

  “Do we really have to explore the entire room?” she asked.

  In the edge of her light she watched Codie turn and face her. “I think we should.”

  “I called his name, he didn’t answer. Let’s move on to the chapel.”

  “There’s a lot of debris and crap in here; he could have fallen and smacked his head on the side of a bath. Maybe he’s unconscious.”

  Codie had moved further from her and she didn’t want to be separated from him. She stepped around the first bath to catch up with him. Their footsteps echoed in the enclosed room, louder than the rain hammering the earth outside.

  Water.

  Kristen stopped, caught her breath and listened. In the echoic room it was difficult to sense its direction but she thought the sound had come from behind her. Turning, she directed the torch light towards the two tubs she’d passed but they sat stoic in the gloom, their sheets sagging under the weight of too much grit.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  Codie had stopped a short way ahead of her. “I heard water.”

  So it wasn’t my imagination. “Yes, I’m sure it came from one of these bathtubs.”

  “I doubt it, sweetheart; there won’t be any water in the pipes, let alone in the tubs.” He shone his light at the nearest window. “It’s pissing down out there; the rain is probably running from the roof in torrents, that’s what we heard.”

  She glanced at him, and he smiled. Even at a time like this his smile had a habit of melting her. Returning his grin, she took another quick look at the tub and moved on. Codie approached the doorway ahead, having searched all the spaces behind the bathtubs. Quickening her pace she stepped awkwardly over dislodged ceiling tiles. Codie pressed his hand onto the door, leaned through the opening, and pushed the door wider.

  A section of broken shelving caught her sweater, pulled her back.

  Codie stepped through the door into the corridor, allowed it to close silently behind him.

  Water splashed in a tub to her left.

  A gasp left her and she spun, shining the torch light at the bath. It reflected dimly off the pale sheet covering the tub—glistened off wet muscle protruding through a rotten head, the light swallowed by the face’s cold, dead eyes. An old woman, strands of hair barely fixed to her decayed scalp, she snapped her jaws in Kristen’s direction.

  With a squeal, Kristen jerked away from the tub, the shard of timber ripping at her sweater, holding her secured against the wall. The torch circled brightness over the woman’s face, each movement of her perished body sending waves of bloody water spilling through the head hole to flow over the filthy sheet. Kristen screamed, wrenched her body away from the shelf, her gaze locked on the demonic woman in the tub.

  The shard of shelving broke free and Kristen’s balance shifted, sending her to her knees in front of the bath. Darkness swarmed in around her, the sound of splashing water under the dead woman’s excited thrashing filling the room. Releasing a terrified whimper Kristen scrambled to her feet and ran back the way she’d come.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Pushing through double doors, Julian exited the passage from the recreation room and stepped into a dark corridor. He brushed at his sleeves, damp from rain forced into the south-western wing by the storm. Picking a leaf from the threads of his sweater, he let it fall to the floor to mix with all the other dead foliage that had somehow found its way in here. After decades of abandonment the weather had carried all sorts of debris throughout the asylum. Different kinds of flora had begun to take root in the cracked flooring, making it appear the island was trying to replace man’s invasion with nature once more. He’d not seen the lightning flash, whenever it’d been, but its rumble of thunder echoed through the building’s spooky corridors.

  He looked down the hallway blackened by the depth of night. Listening for a moment, he heard nothing more. Pulling his phone from his trouser pocket he checked its display—only five percent battery now. He yawned, his eyes watered. Damn he was tired, yearned for a comfortable bed and warm sheets. Perhaps he’d be so tired by the time they were finished tonight that he’d actually be able to sleep all through until morning. That would be good; it would put him closer to the time when they headed down to the jetty to meet the old man and his boat. Julian rubbed a hand over his face but fatigue remained glued to his eyes. Two full days in this place; what the fuck was I thinking saying yes to this shit?

  He walked down the hallway, hoping he was heading the right direction. The old asylum was huge, with numerous corridors and rooms, and one could easily get lost in here. He suspected the walls had at one time been whitewashed, but now they were stained with grime and defiled by graffiti murals of typical street art. He didn’t understand why someone would come all the way out here just to paint coloured designs on a wall that few people would see, but then he seldom understood the way some minds worked. Julian was an uncomplicated guy and Charlotte had once said that was one of his most attractive features. She didn’t have to work hard to please him, yet she went out of her way to do so anyway.

  His lonely footsteps echoed off the narrow passage and he missed his pregnant girlfriend more than ever.

  He told himself to hurry up and get to the chapel so he could re-join the others. Then he wouldn’t have to wander around here on his own. The most important thing to do after that would be to find a toilet that worked.

  I really gotta pinch one off and there’s no way I’m going behind a bush in this damn weather.

  He figured he didn’t really need to find a working one; it’d be more humorous to leave a gift for the next group of intrepid ghost hunters.

  “Shit.”

  He’d forgotten to bring toilet paper.

  Need to plan things better next time.

  At the chapel, he stepped cautiously to the entrance and peered inside.

  The bank of gothic windows along the left-hand wall revealed the depth of the storm beyond, the rolling thunderheads making night deeper than normal. A heavy gloom flooded the altar. From where he stood he couldn’t see anyone inside; he listened for a moment and didn’t hear anything.

  What do you expect? That Alex will be kneeling at the altar offering up a prayer for Liam’s safe return?

  The others weren’t here yet either, and so Julian stepped gingerly onto the damaged door and followed his flashlight into the chapel.

  “Alex?”

  The wind gave a whispered answer, its breath wheezing through gaps in the chapel’s old windows. Threads of cobweb hung like transparent vines from the rafters, swaying gently on soft air currents. He edged further into the chapel, slowing long enough to check behind each of the standing pews in case Liam lay there injured—or Alex crouched there hiding. Perhaps he’d snuck behind the altar, had decided to hide there and make ghost noises or something else more childish. Julian had known Alex long enough to assume he’d be immature enough to carry out such a prank. It would probably work too, and in the condition he was in Julian feared he’d crap his pants.

  Reaching the front row of pews he swept the torch light over what remained of the altar and convinced himself that Alex wasn’t hiding anywhere in the gloom. He called out to the guy anyway, then shouted Liam’s name, getting no response from either of them. Codie and Kristen would have answered immediately, so they weren’t here. Maybe Alex had gotten bored of waiting and gone up to the operating theatre.

  Fine, he can go there but there’s no way I’m going to follow him.

  That place creeped him out enough last night; having Liam describe the surgeries done there, how many patients had probably died on the operating table while undergoing a lobotomy or some other procedure. Julian cou
ldn’t walk down his own hallway in the dead of night without seeing shapes in the corners, so being in this building made it hard to control his dread. The theatre had been bad, but for some reason this chapel now became worse.

  He shivered, tried to hug himself to invoke some warmth in his chilled body.

  Lightning pulsed outside, jack-knifing through dense thunderheads that seemed to hover only a few feet above the island. Thunder crashed almost immediately, darkness inside the chapel thickening as the strobes of electricity stuttered into nothing. With an involuntary yelp, Julian turned from the altar to look behind him.

  Had something been there, observing from the shadows? He hated the sensation of being watched, the eerie feeling prickling hairs on the back of his neck.

  The torch light settled on the front-most pew, its timber surface coated with debris from the shattered camcorder. The tripod lay underneath the seat, almost lost in the darkness. The camera’s main body was close to the bench’s edge, its shell cracked open and small parts strewn across the pew. The LCD display hung limp from the camera, still attached by a singular screw. What the hell had happened to it? If someone had told him that ghosts had the ability to destroy equipment like that, then Julian would never have believed them.

  First the camcorder upstairs, and now this one.

  He stepped over the rubble to the bench, crouched to his knee to examine the camcorder. It probably wasn’t easy to smash a camera like this and rip it open. Those ghosts must have been pretty active after they’d left the chapel last night.

  Reaching out, Julian lifted the LCD display and heard something behind him. With a gasp he jumped to his feet, sweeping the light to his rear, highlighting the altar, but saw no one. The noise had definitely come from there, however.

  “Alex?”

  The only answer was a heavy silence, not even the wind chattering at the window.

  “Liam?”

  The camera slid off the bench seat and clattered to the debris at his feet. The noise of its tumble echoed off the chapel walls and disappeared into the high ceiling. Julian turned and looked down at it.