“I’m in bed again. But it’s not my bed. I’m not even the one moving. I get up out of bed. I try to move my body but it’s out of my control. My body is moving all on its own. It’s like I’m in the passenger seat. I walk out of the room and turn down the hall. There’s writing on the walls. None of it makes any sense to me. The whispers are back. They fill the hallway as I walk down it. I pass by rooms filled with whispers. I can’t turn my head to see who’s in the room. I can only see the ghostly figures out of the corners of my eyes. They looked like they were screaming but only the whispers came out. I was passed the rooms before I could see anymore. I opened a door, or at least my body did. I still had no control. I didn’t know where I was being taken. The whispers had stopped at least. I was in a stairwell now. The stairs were covered in black sludge. The sludge creeped down the stairs at a methodical pace. Each step I took up the stairs made a sticky sound. The smell was horrible. It smelled like something spoiled. Not food though. I imagined this was what rotting flesh smelled like. I continued turning up the stairs. My body found another door and opened it. Inside the smell was more intense. I walked down a hall filled with black bubbling masses. There was steam coming off the masses. The smell was the worst near them. I kept walking. I was being taken through hell. I was waiting to wake up. I began to realize where I was. I was at Crown Hill. I was on the fourth floor in the psych ward. I heard a sound coming from the storage closet. I walked up to it.”

My eyes were locked onto the door. The recording described the carnage we had seen before running into the storage room. This recording wasn’t like the others. It wasn’t of a time before. It was close. It was right outside. I walked up to the door and listened. Was my father on the other side of it? If not, then what was?

“Don’t,” Melissa said.

I wasn’t listening to her. I needed to know what was out there. If there was any chance it was my father then I had to take the risk.

“Dad?”

A knock came at the door. I waiting for a moment and then another knock.

“Who’s out there?”

Something pounded hard against the door. The entire frame shook. I stepped back and got close to Melissa. The door shook with force once again. This time something jutted through the door. Chips of paint and small pieces of the door flew towards us. The inside of the door began to carve. Like someone had a knife stabbed into it and was carving away at it. The carving bowed down and made a curve. Then it stopped and something stabbed into the door at a different point. It happed once more. The door now had something on it. The curve was a giant smile. The other two carvings made eyes on the door. It was him. The one with the grin.

“Hellequin”

Screaming blared from the intercom. We both covered our ears but the sound crept in and stuck in our heads. So many people screaming. This thing was pure evil, and it had us cornered in the closet. The screaming stopped. Voices began to talk from the intercom. They were talking to us.

“All he wants is the good. All he cares about is what makes you smile.”

The voices changed from children to adults to things that no longer sounded human.

“He came here when the others started making noise. He wanted to join in on the fun. He’s not very good at playing with others though.”

The doors shook violently. He was trying to get in. I picked up a broom and prepared to defend us. I knew it wouldn’t do any good though.

“LET HIM IN! LET HIM IN! LET HIM IN!”

The voices were yelling at us. They morphed into one voice. A horrible sounding voice that made me want to do nothing but scream.

“LET ME IN! LET ME IN! LET ME IN!”

He was screaming at me now. The voice wasn’t coming from the intercom anymore. Now it was coming from outside the rattling door. Then everything stopped. Everything went quiet. The intercom screeched alive again. The horrible voice was back on it. This time it was laughing though. Less a cackle and more like a child who had just played a prank.

“You’re even more fun than your father. Want to find out what happened to him? All you have to do is open the door.”

I snapped. Hearing him talking about my father pushed me over the edge of logical thinking. I ran to the door and unlocked it. I opened the door not sure exactly what was going to be on the other side. I had a feeling I was about to die. I didn’t. No one was there. Just the melted piles of the escaped patients and the god awful smell that accompanied them. I looked down and laughed.

“What is it?” Melissa asked.

I knelt down and picked up another recorder. I turned to Melissa to show her. She laughed a little also. We may have still had our lives, but our minds were long gone.