The hospital loading dock was nearly identical to all the others Vince had visited in his life. He trotted up the ramp onto the loading platform, the gym bag over his shoulder bumping against his leg. When he reached the top he held out his hand to the man there. “Mr. Hartman? I’m Vince Porter, from First Missionary.”
“Call me Steve.” Steve Hartman shook Vince’s hand with a short, quick motion then smoothed down the front of a very rumpled dress shirt in a futile effort at looking presentable. He was a tall, wiry man and much better dressed that Vince would expect from a head janitor.
“Remi didn’t give me many details when she forwarded this commission to me,” Vince said. “What can you tell me about your problem? Does it show up here?”
Steve’s eyebrows jumped towards his vanished hairline. “Problem? Is that what you folks call ghosts now?”
“No. Typically we attribute the behavior of what the general public considers ghosts to demons or fair folk. Remi thinks demons are more likely or she wouldn’t have sent me.”
“Fair folk?” Steve raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”
“They’re almost exclusively European so hopefully it won’t ever matter to you.” Vince scanned the loading dock. “Anyway, what’s the deal here?”
“Not here, it’s down in the basement,” Steve said. “All the incidents take place in the sub basement levels, usually in the machinery or sanitizing facilities. I’ll show you where in a minute but first we need to check in with the head nurse. He wanted to be a part of this.”
Vince followed the other man into the hospital proper. Given his role as a pastor he’d been to Northview General more than a few times over the years. However Steve led him through unfamiliar hallways into the facility’s administration wing. “Has the head nurse seen any of the phenomena caused by the ghost?”
“No, not that he’ll admit, but he collected some of the stories that led to us calling you in. And, to be totally fair, he also doesn’t want you here. So he probably feels like he had to flex on you in some way or another.”
“Doesn’t believe in ghosts or problems with religion?”
“Little of both.” Steve hesitated outside a door at the end of the hallway they’d been walking down. “I hope you won’t hold it against him.”
That struck Vince as odd. “You’re the head janitor, right?”
“Head of Maintenance.”
“Do you work with the head nurse on a regular basis?”
“He’s my little brother, helped me get this job.”
That went a long way to explaining Steve’s defensive comments. “Well, I told you on the phone that we need to try and work out who is being pursued or possessed by the demon in question. Was there a common person or place involved when the phenomenon takes place?”
“I don’t know.” Steve knocked on the door as he spoke. “Ryan hasn’t told me any of the details yet, says they’re confidential.”
“Ryan’s your brother?”
“That’s me,” said the man who opened the door. He was just a hair taller than his older brother but considerably larger than Steve. It wasn’t his build, either. Northview’s head nurse looked like he was a hearty eater and not in the healthy sense. “You’re the priest?”
“Vincent Porter, at your service,” he replied, offering Ryan Hartman a handshake. Through an effort of will he managed not to correct him on the term priest, which the Missionary Churches didn’t use. Something told Vince that Ryan wasn’t interested in the nuances of that particular point of doctrine. “Thank you for having me.”
Ryan scowled at Vince, then his brother. “Not sure what Steve expects you to do, especially given how vague the so-called issue is.” He waved the two of them into his office. “Steve told me you wanted to know about common places or people involved in the manifestations.”
“Yes. Without going too deep into the weeds, what’s important here is figuring out who the demon’s target is or was.” Vince sat down in one of the folding metal chairs facing Ryan’s battered partical wood desk. “If I don’t know the demon’s target there isn’t much I can do to get rid of it. They tend to manifest under particular conditions, at least at first, so that will help me narrow down what it’s objective is.”
Ryan made a phlegmy sound in the back of his throat as he took his own seat. “Very well. Based on the testimony there are three people that have been at the majority of the sightings. Myself, Steven and Mrs. Wright, who works nights in the morgue. None of us have been at all the reported incidents.”
“Can one demon afflict multiple people?” Steve asked.
“I’ve never heard of one presence possessing multiple people,” Vince said. “But they can have multiple people in their sights. Steve, you mentioned that most of the incidents take place in the mechanical spaces or near the sterilizer?”
“Yeah, stuff in the sub basements. The morgue is down there too, if you were wondering.”
“I was. Which one are the three of you most likely to use on a typical day?”
“I’m in most of those places every day,” Steve said. “But I don’t think Ryan or Kendra go into the machinery rooms at all.”
“Do you have a lot of use for the sterilizer, Steven?” Ryan asked, tone sounding more than a little patronizing.
“It may come as a shock to you but yes, I do. Not only do we have to run diagnostics on it once a month I’m also in charge of demonstrating it to prospective clients.”
“Clients?” Vince raised an eyebrow. “What, do you let patients boil their clothes there or something?”
Steve chuckled, the first expression of any emotion other than stress Vince had noticed all night. “Hardly. C’mon, it might be easier to just show you. We can pick up Kendra along the way.”
The morgue was in the basement, which was typical for hospitals in Vince’s experience. Northview’s was overseen by Kendra Hall, a laid back woman in her late twenties who’s bright pink turtleneck sweater contrasted with her mahogany skin in a very pleasing way. She studied Vince while fingering a simple cross necklace absentmindedly. Finally she asked him, “Do you think you can exorcize this thing on your own, Father?”
“I’m not your dad,” he replied with a smile, “just a shepherd. But like all who are in Christ I’m never alone so I’m not too worried about your problem. I’m told you’ve experienced some sign of the thing’s presence?”
“I think so,” she said, not looking to reassured by what he said. “Three weeks back I was preparing the latest batch of cadavers from the residency program for the sterilizer when I thought I heard someone crying. I’m not here during visiting hours so that kind of visitor is pretty rare. When I looked around I didn’t see anyone so I thought I imagined it, because this is the morgue and the patients I work with are past making sounds.”
“I take it you forgot all about it until Ryan asked about strange occurrences in the basement?”
“Nope. It wasn’t til the day after he sent the email out that I realized it might be something worth mentioning. The regional waste had just come in down the hall when I heard the sterilizer kick in. And I mean it kicked in right away. Usually it’s an hour or two before they get it up and running but that time it fired up maybe five minutes after they brought the waste down.”
“Okay, I think it’s time someone explained what the deal with this sterilizer is,” Vince said. “It doesn’t sound like something a demon would be interested in but I’m curious.”
“Step this way,” Ryan said. “It’s just down the hall. We’ve had a state of the art medical waste sterilizer and disposal unit for the last sixteen years and the hospital supplements its income by handling medical waste disposal for most of the county as well. We get two shipments a week.”
Vince wrinkled his nose. “Is that a lot?”
“No,” Steve said, loading them out into the hallway. “The hospital alone puts out almost twice that much over the same time period, which is why we can justify the time and energy costs.”
“Got it. So you heard the incinerator going?”
Kendra nodded, fishing a set of keys out of a jacket pocket. “The morgue creates a lot of its own waste and I usually try to get it into the sterilizer with the contract waste so they don’t have to fire it up again on another day of the week. But they were starting up so early that…” For the first time Kendra hesitated and Vince caught a glimpse of the strain she was under as her breathing hitched in her throat. “Anyway, I was going to ask them to wait for me to get things together but when I let myself in there… there wasn’t anyone else in the room and… the sterilizer was cold.”
Kendra slowed to a stop, her eyes locked on the double doors on the left hand side of the hallway. “Do any of you hear a baby crying?”
Ryan took the keys from her gently. “I’m sure it’s just your imagination, Kendra, just like last night.”
“All this happened last night?” Vince asked. “I thought you the had the most experience with this thing.”
“Kendra and I have seen or heard the entity every night for the last week,” Steve said. “She hears children crying, I hear machinery that isn’t there mixed in with crying children. But so far Ryan’s the only one to actually see it.”
Vince saw the way Ryan rolled his eyes. “I take it you wouldn’t agree with that assessment?”
“I’ve never heard any of the strange stuff they talk about,” Ryan retorted. “Do you hear children crying right now? Or machinery? Of course not, because this is an old building that plays tricks on your hearing and if you’re not ready for it you could mistake it for just about anything.”
“So why do they think you’ve seen the demon, Ryan?” Vince asked.
“Because last week some kid around the age of twelve got lost, wandered into the admin wing and asked if I could help him find his parents. When I got up and led him out into the staff break room he slipped away from me.” Ryan sorted as he unlocked the doors. “Steven is convinced this is a manifestation of his mental illness, I think that the manifestation is his insistence the child is a specter.”
“Come on,” Steve said. “You really think all this freaky stuff is in my head?”
“It’s a reasonable assumption,” Vince said, to the surprise of the other three. “What? Demonic influence, in the form of possession or oppression, is actually very rare. The theology of that is kind of convoluted but I’d be happy to give the curious a primer on it at another time.”
“None of you hear that crying?” Kendra asked.
“No,” Vince admitted. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a force here that only wants you to hear it. That’s not uncommon in demonic oppression.”
“It’s just that the oppression itself is rare?”
“That’s right.” Vince unzipped his shoulder bag and pulled out his sword and a pump action t-shirt gun on a sling. “Go ahead and open the door, Ryan.”
The nurse studied his weapons skeptically but did as he was asked. Inside there was a room about ten feet square. Along one wall was a conveyor belt feeding into a roughly three foot by three foot doorway currently covered by a heavy steel shutter. There was a stack of crates along one wall with labels bearing the names of various medical businesses like Pinecrest Dental or Northview Family Planning. The sterilizer was off and no one was in the room. “You just got a shipment today?”
“Remi said you wanted to see the circumstances most likely to cause the being to manifest,” Steve said, approaching the conveyor and poking at the controls. “When I called her we heard things mostly on delivery days. This thing shouldn’t be on.”
“It’s not,” Ryan said.
Kendra made an uncomfortable sound and Vince carefully touched her on the shoulder. “Do you see anything?”
“No,” she whispered. “But someone’s singing to the children now. I can’t understand what they’re saying.”
“You’ve never seen anything here?” Vince asked, giving Ryan a skeptical look. “No phantom sounds, no apparitions, no strange sensations?”
“Sensations?”
“Physical feelings like touches or wetness that doesn’t have a physical source.”
“No.” Ryan shook his head. “This is ridiculous, there is nothing here. Kids wander into restricted parts of the hospital all the time, they’re kids it’s practically what they exist for.”
“It was your idea to take local contracts,” Steve snarled, pulling the side of the conveyor belt housing off and studying the quiet mechanisms inside. “That makes this your fault.“
Kendra slid down next to the wall, her hands over her ears, and started to hum a strange, tuneless song with her eyes screwed shut. Vince sighed and slid down next to her, one hand on her shoulder, and softly said, “Kendra, I’m going to ask you a very serious question that you don’t have to answer. I just want you to know that it is important.” Her eyes fluttered then opened and focused on him, brimming with trepidation. Finally, after studying him for a long moment, she nodded. He took a deep breath and said, “What happened to your child?”
She licked her lips, a shudder running up and down her from her toes to her shoulders and back down again. Her eyes never left his. Finally she said, “I left him at the fire station. In one of those boxes they have, you know? Must have been two, three years ago and I…”
She trailed off and finally looked down at the floor. Vince took bother her hands and pulled her to her feet saying, “You’re a qualified nurse, right?”
“Yes?”
“Then I’d suggest finding a new job, ma’am. A nurse can find work just about anywhere in the city, much less the state, and I don’t think this one is good for you.”
Her eyes flicked to the sterilizer. “What about…?”
“If you don’t have anyone to pray with you I’d suggest trying to find someone. Services at First Missionary are at 9:30 on Sundays, if you don’t have anywhere else you go. But I don’t think there’s anything there that’s interested in you so if you put it behind you and fill the hole you’ll be okay.”
She studied him for a long moment, nodded and hurried away.
Ryan scowled. “What is that? She’s one of the most promising nurses we’ve had in the last five years! Do you know how hard it is to get a serious, intelligent nurse to stay in a tiny city in the middle of Wisconsin?”
“But even if she’s not being targeted by anything the job is clearly unhealthy for her, isn’t it?” Vince asked, slipping his sword back into his bag. He was beginning to suspect he wouldn’t need it.
Ryan made a frustrated sound and spun towards his brother. “What is wrong with you, anyway? You’ve wasted a huge amount of my time, cost me one of my most promising nurses and made me look foolish in front of management! Leave the damn machine alone. It’s off already.”
“But I hear it running, Ryan! The furnace is burning, the children are screaming, the pumps are pumping and I can hear it!”
“No you can’t.” Ryan grabbed his brother’s shoulder and dragged him upright. “We weren’t even conscious, you couldn’t hear it then and you can’t hear it now.”
Vince glanced at the crates then back at the brothers and slid his t-shirt gun back into his bag, too. “Got a question for you, Ryan.”
“No, I don’t attend church,” he spat, shoving his brother away and whirling to face Vince. “And I’m not interested in it, either.”
“Actually, I was wondering if the contract Steve mentioned was the one with Northview Family Planning?”
Ryan hesitated, looking uncertain. “Yes. Did he tell you about it?”
“No. How many brothers do you have?”
“Two,” Ryan said at the same moment as Steve said, “Five.”
Vince nodded. “Artificial insemination, I take it? And your mother wasn’t prepared to carry six children at once.”
“She couldn’t have provided for them anyway, not with our father,” Ryan spat. “Of course she had to terminate some of the pregnancies. What does it matter?”
“Steve.” Vince ignored Ryan and gently turned his brother around. “Steve, the pumps have stopped. They stopped a long time ago.”
“NO!” He jerked back but Vince wouldn’t let go. “I can still hear them! The children are still crying!”
“No, they’re not, Steve. The pumps have stopped and you can’t do anything for those three brothers anymore. You need to start paying attention to what’s around you. You’re not well.” Vince turned and jerked his chin towards the place Kendra had left. “And you’re starting to hurt people who get caught up in what’s happening around you.”
Steve shuddered and shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s all right,” Vince said, patting him on the shoulder. “Head back to your office and I’ll meet you there. Remi and I will figure out who the best person to sort yourself out is.”
For a moment he wavered, thinking about it, then headed towards the door.
Which left Vince with Ryan.
“He wasn’t even conscious,” Ryan repeated.
“We don’t really know that,” Vince replied. “And either way, the trauma remains. To me it looks like you’re both haunted by your brothers, in different ways.”
Ryan stalked up to him, speaking in the barest whisper. “I’m not interested in your preaching. You’re going to tell me I’m the one possessed, aren’t you? I’m the one the demon is interested in because I don’t believe in it and that means I have the least resistance. But you should have tried that before you made it clear you knew there was no demon and my brother and Kendra were just hallucinating because of trauma in their histories.”
“You’re wrong in a huge number of ways,” Vince replied. “First, demons aren’t really interested in people, they’re just a means to an end so one wouldn’t really be interested or uninterested in you. Second, you lack resistance because you are the only thing in you. I’m not afraid of possession by a demon because I’m already possessed by a greater Spirit. Those who don’t belong to anyone are in the most danger. Third, I didn’t know for sure your brother and Kendra weren’t possessed until I got here. Fourth, you’re not possessed.”
Ryan snorted. “Of course not. I’ve never heard any of these phantom sounds or believed in your phantom god. You’ve wasted enough of my time tonight. If my brother wants to talk to you he can explain himself to management, I’m done with it.” He grabbed the housing of the conveyor belt and started replacing it on the sterilizer. “What a waste of everyone’s time. I told him there was no demon here.”
As he walked out of the room Vince glanced at the ‘family planning’ box one last time, shuddered and called over his shoulder, “I never said that.”
Happy Halloween, everyone, and thank you for reading!
This post was written as part of the Haunted Blog Crawl for 2024, a collection of spooky short stories by various talented writers! Be sure to check out the other two using these handy, dandy links!
Cabin Fever by Sarah Pierzchala: http://skirkpierzchala.substack.com/p/3ffa5df4-f834-4122-b4ad-7789e0d1ddb2
Where Dead Wolves Fly by Jacob Calta: https://365infantry.substack.com/p/where-dead-wolves-fly
Putting this event together was facilitated by Daniel P. Riley, who did not contribute a short story as he is in the process of launching his own spooky novel, Heir of the Dragon. Give it a look here: https://www.amazon.com/Heir-Dragon-Modern-Horrors-Book/dp/B0DFWGPL67
Again, thank you for reading. I’ll see you next week!
Nate Chen Publications 