The Old, Deserted Insane Asylum! Part 4

NOTE: Oooh yeah! We’re back with the standby painter DuBois and her all-female crew who are hard at work in the old, deserted insane asylum, unaware that they are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer… no, that’s not right—I’m thinking of something else.  They’ll be experiencing mystery, but not awe, though there will be some terror involved, depending on who you ask.  So let’s see what’s been shaking since we left, and if you need to refresh your memory, check out the first parts, 1-3 of…

 

LOCATIONS OF THE DAMNED: Featuring the Old, Deserted Insane Asylum! Part 4

(A story of which a large percentage is true!)

It was late on a wind-scoured night in the rogue metropolis of the city, which some called “Los Angeles” with a distinct accent that did something different with the ‘g’, which was the right way to pronounce it, but which most people found affected and lame sounding, so that even if they wanted to say the name of the city correctly, they wouldn’t for fear of ridicule.  Let’s just call it “Los Angeles” and you can decide how to pronounce it.  Or better yet, just call it “LA”.

DuBois checked her watch, and decided it was time to get the rest of her truck unloaded so they could finish the hallway.  She walked out of the little pool of light that surrounded the girls’ work area and took her flashlight out of her pocket, shining it on the stairs as she carefully navigated her way to the first floor.  Once she reached the last step, her flashlight faltered and then went out.

“Damn!” she muttered. “No more buying batteries from the dollar store.”  But she could see the dim glow of the parking lot light shining through the small barred and frosted window of the main doors, so she knew it wasn’t much further.  As she was about to move toward the exit, she heard an odd sound.

SKRITCH!

It came from far down the pitch-black hallway, almost to the elevators.  She looked down there and saw a small flame flare up, then transform into an ember glowing in the darkness.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, knowing that nobody should be there.  It was, after all, the old, DESERTED insane asylum.  The small ember immediately dropped to the floor and went out.  She heard a shuffling step.

She asked something really stupid, then. “Is that you, Kippy?” even though she knew it couldn’t be Kippy, because Kippy and the others were all upstairs and because she, DuBois, was using the only stairway that went down to the first floor, because the elevators were broken because the power was off, because the building was deserted— “Shut up!” DuBois told herself.

Silence.  Another second of silence (i.e., a second second of silence).  And then, from far down the hall in the black, dank darkness where the flame had been, she heard breathing.  Big, heavy breathing, from someone big, and heavy.  Or some… thing big and heavy.

DuBois yelled up the stairs, “Girls!  Get down here RIGHT NOW!”  Various complaints could be heard, and Du Bois dearly wanted to go up there and grab the complainers and haul them out during mid-complaint, but she didn’t want to give up her proximity to the exit, or give who- or what-ever it was the opportunity to move closer without being seen, or at least heard.

“NOW!!!” DuBois yelled up again.  There was silence upstairs as the complaining stopped at the force of her panicky voice, and then she heard scrambling.   The “girls” came down the stairs slowly, Sol in the lead with the one other flashlight they had between the four of them.

DuBois was hopping from foot to foot with impatience, gesturing with both arms by pointing down the hall at the phantom menace and at the same time beckoning them to hurry toward her, which made her look like a deranged puppet.  “What the hell are you trying to signal, there, DuBois?” asked Sol.  “The bathrooms don’t work in here, ya know.”

“Just get down here and come out to the parking lot!” hissed DuBois.  She leapt over to the exit door in three giant steps, holding it open for the rest of them and whispering, “Hurry!”

They grouped by DuBois’ truck, demanding an explanation.  When she told them what had happened, there was a moment of silence while each woman thought about what it meant to her personally, the fact that someone unknown had lit a cigarette inside the deserted (well, it was supposed to be deserted) insane asylum, and then snuffed out the cigarette when they realized they’d been seen.  Hmmm… someone who didn’t want to be seen, inside a building which was normally locked and off-limits to everybody….

“Goddamnit! Those cheap sonzabitches didn’t want to pay for a security guard, and now we’re being stalked by a murderer!” (Sol)

“We need to find the base security guard so he can shoot this guy if he tries anything!”  (Kippy)

“I left my car keys in there!” (Neaninte)

“We are so screwed.  We’ll never finish this set tonight.” (DuBois)

Dubois noticed them all staring at her incredulously.  “Well, we are screwed!  The pre-rigging crew is coming in to lay cable at 5:30 am, and—”

“We could have all been stabbed to death by that guy in there, and you’re worried about the set?”  This question was asked by Sol, the most incredulous of those staring at DuBois.

DuBois was sufficiently mollified to volunteer her truck for the trip to the security guard’s building a quarter mile away, but nobody wanted her to leave them there by themselves. “Besides,” Kippy said, “My purse is in there!  With my keys!  My credit cards! My STUFF!”

Kippy stomped her feet for emphasis.  “You know what?  I’ve made a decision.  I’m going in there right now and I’m going to get my purse.”

“No, no!” squealed Neaninte, grabbing Kippy’s hand. “The person who goes back inside always gets killed in every single one of those crappy movies they filmed in there.

Now, this was true.  In almost every movie that had been filmed in the old, deserted insane asylum, the person, usually a young woman, who decided for whatever reason that she just had to go back into the dark, deserted place of evil always got killed, usually in bizarrely inventive and terrible ways.

But that was in the movies, and this was real life.  However, in real life people often got killed making just the kind of decision that Kippy made.  In fact these very thoughts in more or less the same order occurred to Kippy herself, lucky girl.

“Okay,” Kippy said. “I’ll stay out here.”

 

To Be Continued…