Rose Garden Sanatorium - Prologue

Prologue

A large swarm of town pigeons flew up in a rush, disturbing the long since settled dust in the derelict building. The building that many years ago once held many people. Doctors once would have walked around in their white coats, holding patient records in their hands and with their stethoscopes hanging around their necks. The nurses would be rushing around with bed pans and other equally rudimentary items, wearing aprons with large red crosses on them and with their hair pinned back into tight buns. Patients would also be seen in straitjackets screaming at the top of their lungs when they were due for more sedatives.

The building now, however, was eerily silent - yet if you listened close enough you would swear you could hear a distance scream. There were scattered red bricks from the broken walls, broken windows boarded up from the outside and graffiti clinging helplessly on the peeling walls. It was obvious the building was no longer in use.

The pigeons made the boy jump as he walked into an open hall, side stepping past a weed that had decided to reclaim the area – now humans were no longer occupying the building. He stopped to regain his breath and slow his beating heart.

‘It’s just an old building’ he thought to himself, hoping to calm his nerves.

The boy was young, his round slightly tanned Asian face still had a hint of baby fat lingering in his cheeks, his short dark hair complimented his dark brown eyes. He stood holding the zipper on his jacket, close to where his beating heart sat pounding in his chest. His jacket was slightly dirty, from months of use and not seeing the inside of a washing machine. It was his favourite and deemed lucky jacket, it was dark red with black trim around the collar and cuffs. Contrasting with the blue in his jeans, which were slightly too long for his legs, evident from the fraying at the bottom, where his brand new Nike trainers would catch them when he walked.

After composing himself a little, he decided to continue moving onwards, through the vastness of the open hall.
‘The quicker I get it, the quicker I can get out’, he thought to himself as he climbed over a fallen wall, the broken red bricks threatening to pierce the skin on his legs.

He walked quietly and as quickly as possible to the other side of the hall to another corridor, the smell of urine potent in this part of the building as he neared a door separating the hall from the corridor ahead. He also noticed another other smell lingering in the air, yet he didn’t think much of it; he had a job to do.

The door was already open. Though he was sure his friend told him he’d have to open a door at the other end of the hall? Maybe it just fell down since his friend had been here? The door, mould threatening to consume it from the bottom upwards, was leaning awkwardly against the corridor wall, one hinge still attached, the other not.

The boy looked down the corridor to the door at the far end. That was the last door he needed to go through, he was nearly there. He walked slowly, stepping over a weed and some broken glass and side-stepping past an old chair left discarded and lonely in the corridor.

But something made him stop; a sound. He listened out. He could hear someone muttering, and it was coming from that room beyond the door. He realised that strange smell was stronger here too. He certainly wasn’t imagining it. He couldn’t place what the smell was, but he knew it was some sort of incense, he’d smelt something similar in a Thai restaurant one time.

He stood there for a few seconds, in panic. He knew if he ran away now, he’d have his friend at him, telling him he was a wimp for not getting the item he was supposed to get, that damn brick. But if he stayed here, and whoever was the other side of the door was a murderer or something, he’d be dead.

The muttering started to get louder as he stood there, the person was talking louder now, and the boy realised it was a woman’s voice. Spiked with curiosity, he couldn’t help but walk towards the door slowly and quietly. Maybe, if he got close enough, he could hear what she was saying.

The closer he got, the louder the voice got, but not just because he was getting closer, she was getting louder. He started to realise that she was repeating something, now able to hear her, although he just could not work out what she was saying, she was speaking a foreign language. Repeating something. The only word he picked up was ‘mammon’ or something similar.

‘What is she doing?’ he thought, ‘And what language is that?’ He stepped closer to the door, his curiosity getting the better of him. He was now right by the door, if he just peaked through the gap, he’d be able to see into the room. He could already see shadows dancing across the walls and floor, there was some kind of light, and a waft of that strange incense smell too.

The boy shifted his weight slightly on one leg, so that he could peer round the corner of the door, the room slowly came into focus. There was indeed a woman, a woman dressed in all black, she had one hand up in the air, as if she was waving to someone and the other held something burning, she was waving it in a strange motion. She was now shouting, which the boy was grateful for as he was worried she would have heard him by now otherwise.

He saw the brick laying in the middle of the room on the floor, with a very delicate carving of a strange symbol in its side. But he knew there was no chance he was going to be able to go in the room and get it without being noticed. But before he could turn around and leave the building empty-handed, a strange cloud like object started to form before the woman.

Transfixed on the sight, he watched as it swirled and swirled, getting bigger and bigger until suddenly it somehow imploded and vanished. But it didn’t vanish into thin air, it vanished into a crack, a crack that had formed in thin air. The woman stopped shouting now, and the boy found himself going rigid, not just out of terror, but worried about making a sound.

Suddenly, the crack started to open up, something was opening it from the other side, it was as if something was trying to come through, like a rip in fabric. But he could see the other side, there was nothing there. The crack started to get wider and wider and a terrifying clawed red hand reached through. The boy’s eyes went wide as he saw the red hand tear the crack open up in one swift movement and the whole red body attached to the hand climbed through, horns, tail and wings included.

The boy let out a squeak of terror accidentally and covered his mouth with his hand, but it was too late, the creature and the woman turned round, both staring right at the boy, both with the same horrifying pitch black eyes.

Prologue of my book 'Rose Garden Sanatorium' - Part 1. Coming soon!