THE DARK SIDE OF THE WALL
Fragments of a piss-poor horror story by Damon Torsten
Curiosity had finally got the better of me. In the end, I just had to do it. It's not as if I had the option to turn back. Not now. Some unexplainable inner force had brought me here. Some kind of strange instinct; the inner voice that tells you to do things, even those strongly against your will. As this was.
The wall stood towering infront of me, half submerged in decaying twisted ivy. One scrape and small quantities of brick peeled off into my hands. The whole thing seemed somewhat untouched, as if undisturbed for hundreds of years. A mental sign in flashing neon letters telling me to go home while I still can.
(but I can't. You know that. Don't you? Not now.)
Behind me was the road. Yet even that seemed to have some unwary sensation about it. Travellers must pass this spot in a flash. I know, for I have done so myself. It appears to be an ordinary road. Through an ordinary place. Yet somehow, in the warm comfort of a car, everything seems so insignificant. You fail to catch the atmosphere of places which, on foot, may very well send an unwelcome chill down your spine. This was such a place.
I stood on the verge of a slight incline, only a metre or two wide. This was covered in scattered bits of foliage - wrapped around trees and scrub planted by nature and rolling cautiously down into the road. Here, the wall was at its tallest. I had no desire to try at this place so I crept along, hiding carefully from the occasional car as I went.
The verge widened as I reached what used to be the entrance gates, now all boarded up. I stood staring at the tattered stickers sprawled across the damp rotting wood. Guard Dogs on patrol. Danger - Keep Out. I knew that at least the first of these signs should be ignored, for there's nothing in there left to guard. Or so I hoped. If I was frightened, it wasn't because of these notices - merely from the forethought of what might lie beyond them. There was a generous gap between the hoarding over the gates. Not large enough to squeeze through, but plenty wide enough to take a dark glimpse of the other side.
The first thing that caught my eye was a little white building. The paint was flaking off in places to reveal its original brickwork. It was of strange rectangular construction, kind of like an outpost or sentry box, with a low wall leading up to a door on the left. An old sign lent up against it, An old square sign encrusted in white emulsion, with deep black letters daubed upon it.
Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital.
Of the entire length of the boundary, perhaps half a kilometre, it was only here where it was remotely possible to get over. Placing my hands on the rough top of the wall - adorned with broken glass set in cement, I was able to haul myself (just) ontop - and jump down to the other side without injury.
The first thing that shook me was the cold. It was a different type of cold from that on the other side of the wall. An unpleasant kind of chill, like that which you might feel inside a morgue. It was then I looked up and saw it. Through the misty autumn haze it was standing there. The hospital itself.
And this was no ordinary hospital.
No doctors. No patients. This was a dead hospital in every aspect. Cut off from the outside world. As I took one step onto the dirty gravel track that led toward the building, I was taken by the silence. It hit me in a way that I'd never noticed before. There was nothing. Not a single sound. There I was, virtually in the middle of a wood, and there were no bird-calls, no insect buzzing. I stopped and took in my surroundings. All around me were towering pines and spruces, shaking in the breeze that only they could feel. There was an overwhelming sensation that this place had died a very long time ago.
Ahead, to my left, was what appeared to be the main entrance. An obscure double-storey wing with six unevenly placed pillars supporting a triangular parapet. It was white but not white. An attempt at white. Unhygenic decaying white.
I turned my attentions to the short journey to the building, past the solitary outpost on my right. The gravel seemed to wear thin on the path as it metamorphosised into a cracking road to the entrance doors. Yellow grass had sprung up through even intervals in the concrete giving the appearance of a disused airfield.
The road formed into a semi-circle outside the entrance, and a stone plaque caught my eye. It was mounted to the right of the main doors and read thus:
CANADIAN RED ROSS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
This hospital which stands on land lent by Lord Astor and subsequently presented by him to the National Trust was built and equipped by the Canadian Red Cross Society with monies subscribed by the people of Canada and handed over for operation to the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps on July 1st 1940.
The doors lay directly in front of me. Horrible iron doors covered in flaking turquoise paint. Not the kind that you'd associate with a hospital at all. Each had four panes of glass, all of which were broken. The left door was slightly ajar. I closed my eyes and stepped cautiously inside.
