'Sanatorium' By C.W.Phoenix

The 'Sanatorium' is the short story by C.W.Phoenix brought to you as our June story of the month. Based off the increasingly popular activity of urban exploration, it tells the story of two investigators who explore an abandoned sanatorium but not everything is quite as it seems.

Sanatorium

Chapter 1

Never again will I go back to Stonebridge sanatorium. The events from that night will haunt me to my last day. I’m finding it harder and harder to sleep, because every time I do the nightmares get worse.

Two weeks ago, I would have laughed at the idea of ghosts and the supernatural. Now I don’t know what to believe.

My friend Gary and I have been making online videos for years. It started as something to do over the weekend and was originally just poor quality videos of the two of us, messing around and daring each other to do idiotic stunts. Gradually we started taking the videos more seriously and without trying we found ourselves with a small following. We soon realised that we could potentially make our little hobby quite profitable if we tried to improve our content.

Our channel started out with us exploring random caves and woodland. Soon we found that our most popular videos were the ones where we found old sheds and derelict houses, so we started searching out these old broken-down abandoned buildings to investigate. We began to get more and more views and before long became a well known urban exploration channel.

Gary tried to turn each investigation into a ghost hunt. He believed in all that, but I was always extremely sceptical. The viewers of our videos also seemed to be divided on the matter and created endless debate in the comments section. They also seemed to enjoy the comradery between the two of us as we joked about who was right. It turns out Gary was right all along.

Eventually we started running out of places where we could go in the local area, so we began to look further afield. It was Gary who found out about Stonebridge sanatorium. Presumable on the hunt for the most haunted locations he could find. It was an exceptionally large and impressive building. Haunted or not, it would make a great video, and as it was only an hours’ drive away it meant we wouldn’t have to spend the night in a hotel. We were both excited to do the investigation and quickly made arrangements to go there.

At that time, we were doing a lot of research into the buildings we went to. We always tried to get permission from the owners of the property or land before we went, although I can’t say not getting the permission ever stopped us. This was the case for Stonebridge sanatorium. We attempted to contact the owners and find information on the place, but we couldn’t find much at all. There was just the one local information article where we originally discovered the buildings existence. It was described as a late nineteenth century children’s sanatorium built for the treatment of consumption or mycobacterium tuberculosis. Originally designed for the treatment of up to 50 patients at a time, although rumoured to have held over 80 patients, kept in deplorable conditions. Eventually being closed down due to bad management and the declining need for medical care facilities. The building was eventually taken on by a private owner whose primary goal was to turn the building into a hotel but left after only a few months following the disappearance of their son. The building has since been left abandoned and in a steady state of deterioration.

We set off to the site just after five. I packed up the camera gear and went around to Gary’s to pick him up. Anyone could have seen how excited we both were and spent the whole car journey talking about what we were expecting and what cameras we should set up. Over the years we had gathered quite a collection of camera gear and usually set up static cameras around the places we investigated, mainly to get more professional shots as we walked about but also to increase Gary’s chances of capturing the ghost or apparition he had long hoped for. Time flew and before we knew it, we had arrived at the large foreboding iron gates that stood proud at the entrance of the gravel track leading to the sanatorium. The gates were closed and chained with a large rusty padlock denying us entry. One look at the unnerving yet fascinating silhouette of the grand structure obstructing the skyline and we knew we had to go in. As though reading my mind, Gary got out of the car and went straight to the boot to get out the large bolt cutters we always took with us. With little effort the lock fell to the floor and the gates swung open with a creak of rusty metal and a loud clanging sound as the chain dangled, hitting the cold iron of the gate. We were in.

The gravel crunched under the tiers as we drove up to the imposing stone pillar entrance. The wind was howling a gale and the sun was setting behind the building, pulling us into the darkness as we were engulfed in its shadow. It felt like we were on the set from a horror film, but this was very real.

The front door wasn’t locked. It looked like there had been a plank of wood nailed to it at one point but was now laid on the ground. Either the door was too rotten to support it, or we weren’t the first people to go in. The one thing I did always worry about on these investigations was running into a deranged homeless guy or even a community of homeless that had set up camp inside. I had heard story’s and seen other people’s videos of this and knew it was a much more likely possibility than ghosts and ghouls.

Gary wasted no time at all. Before I had even stepped into the building, he was inside with camera in hand, doing the intro for the video. Gary always had a better presence on camera, so I left the majority of the talking to him. A large grand looking entrance room that was part way through renovation, greeted us as we took our first look into the sanatorium. A step ladder was still propped up in the corner and a curved reception desk, covered in dust sheets stood prominent in the centre. I spent some time scanning the entrance rooms while Gary was off entertaining himself. The rooms where dark and dusty. Only the odd shard of light shone through the cracks in the boarded-up windows from the outside world. Weeds and vines grow in through the gaps in the walls and floor, grasping onto the building where they could. The whole place was starting to slowly rot away. There was certainly a creepy vibe from the moment we went in.

We made a habit of doing each investigation in the same way. First, we would do a quick tour of the area, setting up a few cameras as we went. Then we would do a backstory intro for the videos, before a full and thorough investigation on camera, filming everything as we went so that our reactions to each room was real. After a quick look over the first and second floor, we had got a pretty good idea of what we were expecting. There were four floors and a basement in total, making it one of the largest places we had ever looked around, so we knew we would be there a while. Very little renovation had been done to the building. Some of the rooms on the first floor had been turned into hotel rooms, decorated with floral wallpaper now pealing and faded. The second floor was almost untouched from its days as a medical facility. Bed frames, wheelchairs and cupboards still full of medical records remained, littering the rooms and halls, long forgotten and gathering dust. We returned to the main entrance way to start the video. At that point neither one of us had noticed anything strange or out of place but that was all going to change.

Chapter 2

Gary started the video as normal and we began the walk through of the entrance. We hadn’t even been around the whole room before Gary stopped to tell me the cameras battery was about to die. This was one of the things we check before we start but I assumed that he had just missed that one, but he insisted it had been a fresh battery. Of course, Gary automatically blamed the spirits and after changing the battery for a fresh one he made sure the viewers were informed about this. We continued down the halls looking into each room as we went, joking with each other about how haunted the building was and how unsafe it felt walking through some of the rooms with large cracks down the walls. It was all very uneventful but interesting none the less.

It was as we were walking up the stair’s things started to change. We had made it about halfway up when a loud metallic scraping sound echoed through the halls from the second floor. Gary and I turned to each other, each of us with a startled look on our faces. After close to a hundred uneventful investigations, suddenly we got something. The slow growing grin on Gary’s face showed his excitement. I was expecting that moment he had been waiting for, when he could tell me I told you so. Instead he just ran up the stairs and down the hall to see where the noise was coming from, all the time expressing his joy to the camera. I ran after him and found him about halfway down the right hall, tumbling with a sound recorder. He turned the camera to me and began asking the ghosts to make a noise to prove their existence to the nonbeliever. After a few minutes of questions and patient silence to await the ghost’s response, he turned the recorder off and began quizzing me on what I thought the noise was. It did sound to me like one of the steel bed frames being dragged across the floor, although my explanation for it was anything from other people to birds landing on them, not anything paranormal. Gary was still convinced it was evidence, so he began to rewind the recorder and listen intently to any responses he might have caught. I didn’t pay much attention to the recordings, not expecting to hear anything. Imaging how startled I was when there was a clear voice played back, so loud and in clear response to Gary’s question. He had asked why they were still there and the voice on the recorder replied by saying ‘no escape’.

Gary immediately ran over to me rewinding the recording to replay it, demanding I acknowledge the clear voice he had captured. There was no chance I was going to admit to him being right. I would never hear the end of it.

‘That could be anything,’ I told him. ‘Just noise that your interpreting into a voice,’

He laughed. He could tell he had got through to me, even if just a little. I must admit, it was hard to explain away. There was a voice, clear as day. A man’s voice, deep and gruff. I couldn’t tell if it was because of hearing the recording or a sudden gust of wind but I felt a chill go up my spine. Something I have never experienced before while exploring. A sudden feeling of dread washed over me. A feeling, something bad was going to happen.

Gary in his excitement hurried us off to go and investigate the upper floors for the first time. Every so often he would stop and pause for a moment, thinking he had heard a noise. The higher up we went the worse state the building seemed to be in. It’s easy to forget the history sometimes. When your trying to make a video, stay safe yet entertaining and ghost hunt all at the same time, its easy to miss things. It’s at those times when you’re not expecting it, that reality hits you the hardest.

We turned a corner through a large set of light blue double doors and were confronted with a room full of small cot beds. Tiny knitted blankets still lay inside some of them, along with tattered, once loved toys and dolls. We fell completely silent as the seriousness of the past tragedy hit us like a tone of bricks. This place once contained children of all ages. Some of them suffered here. Some of them died here. Gary lowered the camera and stopped recording, giving him a moment to gather his thoughts. We walked over to a wall once decorated with the scribbles and drawings the children had created, that now lay decaying on the floor in the dirt. I picked up one of the pictures and stood it up to rest against the wall. Displaying it the best I could to decorate the room once more.

Our attention was soon stolen by a sound from the hall behind us. A faint, high pitched giggle of a small child, along with running footsteps. Gary turned to look at me with a wide-eyed shocked expression that I can only imagine resembled my own.

‘There must be someone else in the building,’ I told him.

He wasn’t convinced and hurried out to the hallway to look. By this point it was getting dark outside, meaning inside was almost pitch black. He turned back to me and asked for the flashlight I was carrying in the backpack. He thought he had seen something and had to go check it out. I dropped the pack to the ground and started rummaging around inside. I pulled out two flashlights and a head torch, passed one of the lights to Gary who immediately ran off down the hall after whatever he saw while I put the head torch on. Then I heard the giggle again, but this time it was coming from the rooms at the other end of the hall. The opposite direction Gary was going. I spun around and from around the corner a small black shadow darted off, as though someone or something was peaking its head around, watching me. Still not fully convinced in it being the paranormal, I couldn’t help getting the feeling whoever it was, was trying to separate us. I wasn’t falling for it and went in the same direction Gary had gone.

I ran after him, calling his name. No response. Panic was setting in the further I went. I knew he must have gone back down the stairs, but that place was huge and he could have gone anywhere. I ran all the way back to the entrance hall still calling out for him and getting no reply. We had left the laptop out on the reception desk, playing the footage from the cameras. I instantly began flicking through, hoping to get a glimpse of Gary, so I would know where he was. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw him on the camera we had left on the second floor. I leaned in for a closer look, to work out what room he was walking into. That’s when I saw the dark mist floating behind him. A dark fog that had no defined shape but was a swirling thick mass. Gary seemed completely unaware. I had never seen anything like it, moving with a degree of intelligence. It followed him into the room. I shouted out to Gary again, knowing he wouldn’t be able to he me, but I felt so helpless just watching. I ran up there as fast as I could. What the hell was that thing. I finally had to admit to myself that maybe Gary was right all along. Maybe there is more to this world than just us.

As I approached the top of the stairs, I called out to Gary again. Panting and out of breath I charged down the hall to the room where I saw him last. My eyes fixed on the door entrance. Then, out pops Gary, making me jump out of my skin.

‘There you are,’ He says, like nothing at all.

I had been running around in a crazed panic and there he was cool as ever. I tried not to let on that I was coming around to his way of thinking but he could tell.

‘You saw something didn’t you,’ he said, a grin on his face from ear to ear.

Well this was what he’d been waiting for, so I explained what had happened and that I clearly saw something unhuman follow him into the room. I could have tried to claim it was a camera glitch and that there were small children running around, pranking us, but in all honesty, I didn’t believe it myself. I was surprised to see him walking around without the camera to capture everything that was happening, but Gary soon informed me that he had tried to turn the camera back on, but the battery had been drained again. He was about to go back downstairs to get his phone to film on when I showed up. I was relieved to find Gary and had to admit I was scared, so suggested we went back to the entrance hall to regroup and charge the batteries. If this place was haunted, I wanted to make sure I got something on camera. I knew I would need proof for the sceptics to believe me.

Chapter 3

We made our way back down to the entrance hall. Gary was excited to watch the footage back so that he could see what I saw on camera, but he’d never get the chance to. When we reached the room, the first thing I noticed was the scattered chunks of plastic and metal on the floor. The laptop had been smashed into pieces. Not just dropped on the floor or knocked off the desk but literally smashed into hundreds of tiny fragments. Like it had exploded or shattered like glass. We both started inspecting the remnants of computer, trying to figure out how it could have been damaged to such an extent.

‘I guess the ghosts don’t want us filming them,’ Gary said.

To which I considered making a joke about them being shy but was too annoyed about my destroyed laptop. As soon as Gary realised it meant we had lost all our footage from the static cameras, he became a lot more concerned himself. His patience wore thin as we reorganised our equipment. Switching out the batteries and gathering anything we could use to capture proof of the paranormal.

It was well into the night by the time we had composed ourselves and would find it impossible to find our way around without some kind of light. We both had head torches and flashlights. There was also night vision and a light on the camera, and this time we took plenty of extra batteries and my phone just in case. Gary wanted to go back up to the top floor, due to our hasty retreat earlier, there were still areas we hadn’t discovered. There was also the basement that we hadn’t even stepped foot in. I half wished we could skip the basement altogether. I admit it, I was scared but knew Gary would drag me down there, whether I liked it or not. Especially since the morgue was down there and if we were going to see ghosts, that’s as good a place as any.

Armed to the teeth with every bit of ghost hunting equipment we had. We climbed the stairs to the top of the building again but this time more prepared. Or at least we thought we were.

We found an empty room on the top floor, a few doors down from what we were now calling the baby room. We decided to try and get more EVPs or electronic voice phenomena to anyone who isn’t familiar with ghost hunting tech, so we sat ourselves down in the centre of the room and switched on the equipment.

The room was still and quiet. An occasional shuffling sound or light tapping emanated from the hall outside but nothing of definitive proof, only enough to keep us on high alert. Taking turns to ask questions then waiting in hesitant silence for a response we sat patiently for almost thirty minutes. Every so often Gary would wind back the recording to listen intently for a reply from the other side. There was the occasional noise but no clear replies.

I suggested we should move on to a different room, since we weren’t getting anything where we were, so feeling slightly disappointed we walked back out into the halls. The moment Gary turned the corner he walked into something, banging his shin and expressing some choice words.

‘What the hell did you walk into?’ I asked him, chuckling to myself at his misfortune.

He shone his torch down towards the ground and stretched across the corridor was a low wooden bench. Like the ones you had in gym class at school, just a lot older and covered in dust. It hadn’t been there earlier. I would have seen it. I would have remembered. Gary shone his light across the bench from end to end, pausing at one section on the near side. There in the dust was a clean spot in the shape of a hand. Wrapped around one side were the defined fingers left by someone as though they had been pulling on the bench at one end. I think the part that freaked us out the most was the size of the handprint. It was so small and delicate, it could have only been left by a small child. Surely, we would’ve heard the sound of a lump of furniture that size being moved but we hadn’t heard a thing. Unsure if they were trying to block us from leaving or from continuing any further. We wanted to try a new method of communication. Gary reached into his bag and pulled out the Ouija board he had brought on every investigation we had ever done. I had always refused to do it in the past. Something about it tells me it’s a bad idea and the stories I’ve heard about other people doing them, just confirm that. This time Gary wasn’t taking no for an answer. This was the best chance we would ever get to contact the other side and now I was a believer, part of me wanted to talk to them. I wanted to know what happens when we die.

Before I knew It, we were back in the baby room, sat on the floor with a cheap looking Ouija board placed between us.

‘Are you ready?’ He asked.

I wasn’t ready. I don’t think I ever would have been. It’s hard to explain the feeling of realising that everything you had believed your whole life was wrong. Gary was in his element and I was just there for the ride.

The moment I placed my fingers on the planchette the atmosphere in the room changed. The air felt cooler and I became hypersensitive to my surroundings. We left one small flashlight on the floor next to the board and the display screen from the static camera on, giving off a dim glow but otherwise the room was dark. My eyes played tricks on me as I scanned the pitch-black corners of the room. Faint noises grabbing my attention, not clear enough to make sense off.

Gary began to call out to the spirits, welcoming them and inviting them to join us. He asked questions and relayed details about us. Introducing us like we were new classmates. As I sat scanning the room, I felt my fingers glide across the board, drawing my attention back down to the planchette that was moving with intent to the word Yes. I never thought it would actually move. My first assumption was that Gary was moving it, but he was adamant it wasn’t him. I also knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t fake something like that. He wanted unmistakeable proof, not entertainment value. I asked him what the last question he asked was.

‘Are there any trapped spirits here?’ Gary said.

Well I guess we got an intelligent answer. I told him to keep going, to ask something else.

‘What is your name?’ He asked

Again, I felt my fingers float across the board until the planchette came to a rest on the letter G. Then after a moment’s hesitation it moved again, this time stopping at the letter A. Then R and finally Y. It spelled out Gary’s name. We debated if the spirit shared the same name or if it was trying to get his attention. I again accused Gary of being the one moving it, but he insisted it wasn’t him. This time I could tell by the shear look of terror on his face that it wasn’t him. As we contemplated the meaning behind the name, before we had even asked another question, the planchette moved again. This time it was a much more jerky and aggressive movement, darting across to the letter T. Then A, K and eventually E. It made no sense. Take what? What was he meant to take? We didn’t know what to make of it and I could see that Gary was growing concerned by the personal response. He lifted his fingers off the planchette and was immediately startled by a loud bang from down the hall. It sounded like a door slamming and shook us both. I was captivated by the responses we were getting and convinced Gary to place his fingers back down and continue the conversation with the other side. The atmosphere felt tense and this time I was the one asking the questions.

The minutes ticked by and I asked question after question with no response. Then it suddenly occurred to me that Gary hadn’t spoken a word the whole time. I lifted my head, taking my eyes off the Ouija board that had kept me so entranced, to look across at Gary. It wasn’t Gary who was staring back at me though. It was a contorted, twisted grin on a face I didn’t recognise, staring right at me under a lowered brow. In a second I was on my feet and half way across the room. Gary, or at least his body, stood up slowly. His shoulders hunched over, head lowered but still with that grinning face gazing right at me.

‘What’s wrong Jack?’ He said in a calm, creepy voice.

It did sound almost like Gary’s voice but just slightly off. More like someone trying to mimic his voice.

‘What’s wrong with you is more like it?’ I said in a panic.

He took a step towards me and one of the cot beds jerked across the room with a deafening squeak of metal as it scrapped across the floor, moving on its own. Gary’s gaze still fixed on me, Still holding that grin. I couldn’t take it any longer. I ran to the door but it slammed shut in my face as I got there. A gust of cold air blasted me from behind as I rattled the door handles, trying to get out of the room to no prevail. Terrified to turn back around I paused at the door grasping the handles, willing them to move. Then I felt a hand placed on my shoulder, sending chills down my spine.

‘Hey, chill. Its ok,’ A soft voice said from behind me.

It sounded like Gary and his normal voice. I turned around slowly expecting to see that grin up close and personal, but it was gone. Just Gary looking like his normal self, maybe slightly more confused but it was him. He asked me what happened and I tried to explain but I’m not sure he really believed me.

He picked up all the equipment and the Ouija board and suggested going down to check out the basement. My heart was still thumping and all I wanted to do was get out of there. I had done enough exploring and tried to convince Gary to leave but he wanted to go on. It occurred to me that apart from the odd sound and questionable shadow, Gary hadn’t experienced anything like I had.

‘What about the Ouija board spelling out your name?’ I asked him.

‘What are you on about? It never moved,’ He said

I started to wonder if I had fabricated the whole thing in my head. I wish I had but it was so real. There was no explain this one away.

Chapter 4

I tried to stop him. I tried to stop him from going down there, but he said if I was too scared, he would go down there on his own and I couldn’t let that happen.

The basement was the only part of the building we hadn’t explored. Of course, we had to leave the scariest floor till last. The place was boarded up pretty well but there was a small amount of light leaking in here and there, but not in the basement. Down there it really was pitch black. There was a long wide hallway that sloped all the way down to the basement. I’m guessing this was for ease of transporting body’s on gurneys down to the morgue. The feeling down there was intense. I was scared and still had the previous events playing on my mind, but it just felt different. Like we were being watched by an evil presence. Gary, none the wiser, still trying to make a video was walking around talking into the camera. He said himself it felt different down there.

We scanned the rooms as we went. There wasn’t much to see as most of the rooms were completely empty. The odd desk or box of old paperwork. I think Gary was hoping to find some of the old hospital records or something, but they were cleared out long ago. Deeper into the basement we went. It was all small rooms and twisting corridors that all looked the same. It is so easy to get lost down there. Gary wanted to find the morgue. He had seen other people do videos where they climbed into the morgue draws and he wanted to do it himself. I just hoped it would be uneventful.

As we reached the far end of the basement, we found a large open room with smaller rooms leading off to the sides. Above the entrance to one of these side rooms was the sign Gary had been looking for. A dusty grey sign with morgue in large black letters. He ran in and started opening the large metal doors. Then slid out a tray and pressed down on it to test if it could support his weight. He told me to take his torch and switched his camera to night vision. He wanted to do it, so I let him.

I stood outside the room shining the light up and down the hall. I could hear Gary’s voice faintly from inside the morgue draw, asking questions, then long pauses as he waited for a response. That’s when I started hearing the other voices. Whispers at first, so faint I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then they got louder. They were saying Gary’s name. Over and over, different voices repeating his name with other whispers in between that I still couldn’t make out. They were getting louder and louder but still breathy whispers. I shouted out to him to hurry up. I told him we needed to leave. Then just as I was about to turn around to go and get him the whispers turned into a loud voice right next to my face.

‘Gary. Take him’ it said.

I turned to look at where the voice came from and there was that grin again, the face with the large crooked grin looking right at me. Startled, I stumbled backwards and fell to the floor. I could hear loud banging on metal coming from the morgue draw. It was Gary. He started screaming and frantically trying to get out. I jumped to my feet and ran over to the draw, pulled open the large steel door and helped Gary out of there. I have never seen anyone look so terrified in my life. He was pale white, and his eyes were as wide as can be. I asked him what happened, but he didn’t say a word. He just pushed me to one side and ran off into the darkness. I ran after him, but I didn’t see what way he went. I tried to find him, then I tried going back the way we came but I got lost. I had no idea where I was or where he was. I thought he might have managed to find his way out and could only hope he was waiting for me.

Then I saw the blood. It was fresh, bright red blood in the shape of a handprint, smeared down the wall. I was scared and didn’t know what to do. That was when I heard Gary screaming. Not a scream of pain but one of agonising desperation and fear. I went after him. I had to find him. We were friends for so long, he was like a brother to me. I ran and ran through the endless halls searching each room I found. I was about to lose hope, when I saw him. He was laying in the middle of the hall face down. He was covered in blood. I thought he was dead. Then he turned on his side, clutching at his stomach. When he saw me, he reached out his hand towards me. He wanted me to do something, but I didn’t know what to do. The way he looked at me. I took a step towards him and that’s when something grabbed him by the feet and dragged him away down the hall. I know I should have gone after him, but I was petrified. I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, I ran in the opposite direction. Eventually I found the long corridor leading back to the upper floors and I thought about going back for him, but I had to get out of there. I left the sanatorium with every intention of getting him help, sending someone back to look for him. I know I shouldn’t have left him there. I wish I hadn’t left him there.

Chapter 5

Sargent Phillips sat back in his chair before looking across at Officer Cartwright. Jack could tell they didn’t believe him.

‘Well that’s one very interesting story Jack, but do you really expect us to believe that Gary has been Kidnaped by the bogeyman?’ Sargent Phillips said with a condescending tone.

‘I know how it sounds but that is what happened. Go there. You’ll see, its all exactly how I said it was.’ Jack insisted.

‘Oh, don’t worry, we have a whole team of forensics and detectives combing the place from top to bottom right now. They’ll find the truth,’ Sargent Phillips added.

‘That is the truth,’ Jack whimpered through tears as he grasped his head in his hands.

Officer Cartwright stood up and lent over the table to pick up a large water jug and proceeded to top up a cup of water and place it in front of Jack.

‘The part that confuses me is why you didn’t come to us. Your friend gets dragged off into an abandoned building by god only knows what, and what do you do? You went home, got a bite to eat, maybe watched a bit of TV. You can’t have been too torn up about it, seeing as you didn’t even report him missing. You didn’t even tell his parents. They came to us, crying their eyes out and asking us to find their missing son after he hadn’t returned home for three days. Now you try and feed us this rubbish after we bring you in to question you.’ Officer Cartwright said gruffly, as he sat back down folding his arms.

‘It wasn’t like that. What was I supposed to do? I knew nobody would believe me.’ Jack insisted.

‘Maybe they would believe you if you told the truth. If you want to know what I think. My guess is that the two of you fell out and you saw an opportunity to get rid of him and solve all your problems. I’m guessing you were hoping he might have an accident. Old buildings can be very dangerous places,’ Sargent Phillips said.

‘No, I never. We were best friends,’

‘That’s funny. You see when we spoke to his parents, apparently the two of you had been arguing a lot recently. Had a fall out over some girl or something,’ The Sargent added smugly.

‘No. It wasn’t like that. Yeh, we argued, but we were mates. All mates argue sometimes. I didn’t care about him and Sam,’ Jack replied.

‘Wow, you must have been really good mates if you don’t care about your best friend seeing your ex behind your back.’ Officer Cartwright said.

‘It wasn’t behind my back. I knew about it,’ Jack replied, now with a tone of frustration in his voice.

‘Evidently,’ Sargent Phillips said softly.

There was a gently knock on the door to the interview room. Jack sat up in his chair, his hands quivering.

‘Yeh, come in,’ Sargent Phillips called out.

A petite blond lady in an ill-fitting grey suit entered the room and whispered something to the Sargent before giving Jack a disapproving look as she exited the room.

‘Well it seems they have found your friend. Please excuse me while I find out some more details. Officer Cartwright, perhaps you would like to join me? We can give Jack here some time to rethink his story,’ Sargent Phillips said as he stood up from his chair.

The Sargent left the room, followed by officer Cartwright, leaving jack sat in the room by himself. The room contained a white table and three plastic blue chairs. There was a recording device sat into the wall next to the table and a mustard yellow fabric chair in the corner of the room. The florescent lights were bright and blinding as Jack looked up inspecting the room. A small red light blinked at him from a camera in the corner and a cool breeze off the air con blew directly down on his face. His mind ran is circles as he replayed the events of that night in his head. Nobody believed a word he was saying and the feeling of dread he had felt that night grew in his stomach again. He broke down into tears and was still crying over half an hour later when Sargent Phillips and Officer Cartwright returned to the room.

Officer Cartwright sat down first, flicked open a notebook and clicked his ballpoint pen into action. The Sargent then joined him at the table, sat himself down and turned on the voice recorder. He listed the date and time before recalling the names of everyone in the room, then turning to Jack with a solemn look. Jack stared back, his face red and blotchy but no longer crying. He knew what Sargent Phillips was about to say.

‘The search of the sanatorium was completed earlier today. The Body of Gary Watts has been found with multiple injuries including severe bruising to the face and chest. Cuts to the mouth. Defensive cuts to the hands and arms. Broken bones and seventeen stab wounds. His body was found in the morgue cold lockers. They also found something else, Gary’s handheld Camera. I had a quick look at the footage myself. It’s actually given us a pretty good idea of what happened in there. I didn’t see any ghosts, not that I’m surprised. What I did see was you, dragging him out of the morgue cold lockers and proceeding to attack him before the footage cut off.’ Sargent Phillips stated.

‘No, it wasn’t me, I couldn’t,’ Jack quickly added before he was interrupted by Sargent Phillips again.

‘Stop, we are in the process of recovering the rest of the footage from the other cameras so we can gather a full idea of everything that happened. You need to have a good think about what your new statement is going to be because at the moment its not looking good for you. I don’t want to hear any more rubbish about demons and ghosts, just the truth,’ said Sargent Phillips, as he stood up and walked around the table towards Jack.

‘Jack Whitaker, we are arresting you for the murder of Gary Watts,’ Officer Cartwright said before continuing to read Jack his rights.

Sargent Phillips placed Jack in handcuffs and proceeded to lead him down the hall towards the cells. The events of that night really would stay with him, along with the decisions he made. The Sargent placed him in an empty cell left alone with only his regret.