The dead silence of the meeting room was broken by a loud thump on the table. It was Jackson, as he forcefully smashed an old newspaper that he found onto the wooden table.
The newspaper was yellow stained, signifying its old age. The headline revealed a huge distorted image of a fairly small hospital. An abandoned one, to be specific.
Jack’s eyes glared at the four of us intensively, his pair of pupils showing full of excitement and anticipation.
This took place a week before summer holiday.
For context, we are a small team of explorers. As adventurers, our main objective was to explore and document abandoned locations across America, which had long been forgotten. I, Kumar was part of a team of five, including my girlfriend Amanda, Jackson, Tiffany, and Madison.
Jackson continued his speech.
“Clifford Hospital is located in our neighboring state. Established in 1936, it was meant to provide service throughout rural areas, thus being built near a forest close to an abandoned town. It was abruptly abandoned in 1953 for unknown reason. Although it made headlines at the time, the story quickly faded from public memory. Weird, huh. I’ve searched for the Internet hoping to find any information about the hospital but no results came. As if it disappeared from the world without a trace.”
Madison nodded in agreement, followed by Tiffany and Amanda. Jackson then asked if we were able to team up to make an exploration at the hospital. The four of us were just excited as him. Furthermore, we were confident that documenting such a rare place would not only bring satisfaction, but also certainly bring us popularity.
Summer break came, and we packed our equipment for the exploration. We traveled using my trusty GMC pickup and set out on the long journey to our destination. It took several hours on the countryside road to reach to the hospital. Our plan was to film throughout the hospital using cameras and drone and head home before nightfall.
As soon as the figure of a dilapidated building came into view, I decelerated the truck and pulled over in front of the entrance.
The appearance of the building was mesmerizing. Having being abandoned for almost 40 years, it was obvious for the dirty building to be overlapped with overgrown weeds. Trees were growing from the windows and small plants protruded the concrete cracks. The front door was barely hanging on its hinges, and the surrounding grounds were littered with broken glass and rusted metal. It was clear that this place had been forgotten by the world, left to decay in its own time.
Around the ancient hospital was a thick forest, surrounded by countless rows of fir trees, effectively rendering the surrounding environment more sinister.
Amanda pulled out a camera to snap some photos from the truck. Simultaneously, we stepped off the pickup truck and grabbed our filming equipment. Tiffany who was in charge of flying the Mavic drone ran to a plain terrain and flew it up. Moments after, the 4k camera from the drone displayed several blocks behind the building as it flew ahead. We then planned a way to explore the buildings.
The plan was executed as following. We would be split into two groups, where Jackson, Tiffany and Madison explore the east side, whilst Amanda and I headed for the west side. We would then return to the truck once we finished exploring.
This gave Amanda and I some time alone. Something that I always crave for. My left hand held a flashlight while the other one grabbed Amanda’s palm as we walked into the entrance.
The front-most of the hospital was the reception room. The only source of illumination was sunlight from the broken windows which gave us a dim view of the entire room.
It was truly a sight to behold. I’ve seen countless abandoned places but this one seemed to be unique in its own category. The displacement of the furniture, the design of the tiles, the combination of these elements produced a surreal environment. As I turned towards Amanda, I saw her taking a few shots of the room.
We turned left towards the east wing of the hospital. We cautiously stepped into the alleyway as glass shards were abruptly broken for every step we took. On our left side was a column of windows illuminating the alleyway. On our right were locked wooden doors, presumably operation rooms and doctor offices.
As we took a corner, we noticed a profound oddity on one of the doors. It was different than the others. It was bigger and seemed more reinforced. Above the door was a faint sign that read “RESTRICTED ACCESS TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY”.
As we approached, Amanda noticed that the handle was broken, thus allowing us to swing open the door.
Amanda immediately glanced at me full of excitement. I was hesitant initially, however judging by her determination, I felt obliged to not disappoint her. Furthermore, I reasoned myself that we could potentially unravel unsolved mysteries if we ventured deeper.
We took out first steps through the door. It led us into a more confined alleyway which lacked windows so it was nearly pitch black inside. I shone the flashlight ahead of us and visualized a long alleyway with serrated steam pipes along the wall.
We documented everything that we could find. We then advanced further, which eventually led us to an elevator at a dead end. Since there was no power available, we had no option but to take the spiral staircase at the opposite side of the wall.
The staircase was severely rusted but stiff enough to damper our combined weights. I took the lead downwards. I reminded Amanda to be careful as it became even darker.
The journey downwards into an unknown void was almost endless. After what seemed to be an eternity, I finally stepped on concrete. We were pretty much fifty feet deep.
“Honey, what kind of hospital has such a deep basement?” whispered Amanda.
Cold ran down my spine. My sixth sense hinted a bad feeling.
We continued advancing ahead. A minute after some walking we passed by a room. The sign read “Decontamination zone”.
Amanda pointed her camera towards one of the glass pane at our left. A set of laboratory glassware and furniture were instantly illuminated as the camera’s light flashed. There appeared to be huge graph papers pinned onto walls and computer monitors on the desk.
“This must be some sort of secret laboratory. As to why it was built 50 feet below was still unknown. Nevertheless, it looked pretty cool” Amanda spoke to the camera.
I was pretty amazed by the looks of the structure. As I shone further into the corridor, I noticed a black object on the floor. I was oddly terrified as soon as I realized what it was.
“A pistol? What happened here?” Amanda asked.
“No idea. I just found it laying on the floor. Oh no, look at those bullet holes on the wall.” I replied.
There were shots fired. But who fired it? And most importantly, to whom was it fired at?
Shivers ran down my spine. The same went to Amanda. I grabbed the gun and kept it with me, just in case.
Ahead of our path loomed a colossal steel blast door, its center marred by a gaping crack in which an ungodly force had acted upon it. Despite our best efforts, we could not find a way to breach it and were forced to accept it as a dead end. After exhausting all possible avenues, we begrudgingly called it a day.
Just as we were about to leave, I noticed a door at my peripheral sight. It was partially unlocked so we decided to give it a shot. As Amanda flung open the door, we were met with a private office.
On the desk wrote “Dr. Clifford”, presumably the doctor’s office. The office was partly intact, albeit the mess on his desk and the floor. Adding to the disarray, there was a drip of blood stain on the wall.
What got my attention was the column of stacked files on his rack. They were labelled as “HIGHLY CLASSIFIED”.
“Bingo, Amanda. Look at these” I exclaimed, but then realized she was busy scanning for the desk.
Without hesitation I pulled out one of the files.
It was a yellow bind file. The title wrote “PATIENT CASE AA-1394-X”. I flipped the file open. Papers nearly flew out. The contents made me sick.
“Patient AA-1394-X. Status: Deceased.”
“Description: Patient was admitted on May 19th, 1949. Dr. Maynard’s observations and documentation confirm that the patient possessed an extraordinary level of physical strength, estimated to be on par with that of an adult male silverback gorilla. Vital signs showed drastic increase as time went by which eventually led to patient’s death eight month since admittance.“
“Postmortem report: DNA sequence of deceased patient was extracted and researched extensively. As a result, patient’s DNA was able to be integrated into an insulin.”
“The government expressed interest in harnessing this ability by creating a genetically modified organism capable of inheriting it, with the intention of applying it for military purposes.”
I absolutely could not believe what I read. I took out some of the files and kept them in my backpack. Amanda returned with another file in her hand. I thanked her and did not hesitate to tell her the file that I had just read.
Her expression was as expected.
What unexpected was a bone chilling screech from the distance, from where we came. It sounded unearthly enough to paralyze us.
Amanda instinctively hugged my arm.
“What the fuck was that? Kumar, what was that!?”
“No idea. Hey, we gotta get the fuck out of this place.”
I slid the last file into my backpack and we fled the room. We ran past the lab, the decontamination room, and ran upwards all while I clenched on the handgun. Amanda was still filming with the camera.
We left the basement as fast as we could. We exited thrice faster than when we entered. I nearly collided with something as we exited the door of the large bright alleyway. It was Jackson. I also noticed Tiffany and Madison running in the distance.
“What the hell happened, Jack?” I tried not to raise my voice as I muttered at him.
Jack said “Just run! Something was chasing us. It was trying to murder our asses.”
“Something?” I pondered but was immediately interrupted by another deafening screech.
A gigantic entity appeared from the end of the alleyway. The sunlight cast an eerie glow upon the creature, exposing its truly horrifying appearance. Towering at an imposing height of 6 feet, the humanoid figure boasted excessively protruding skin and a grotesquely mutilated face. But the most terrifying aspect of the creature was its razor-sharp, mantis-like claw, capable of easily overpowering any obstacle in its path.
“RUN” Jack screamed.
We fled the other way. I grabbed Amanda’s waist and ran along with them. The distance between us and the creature became smaller as we ran through halls and rooms.
As we bolted through the surgical room, Jack, leading the group, abruptly warned us of an obstacle up ahead, shouting for us to jump. Without hesitation, he leaped into the air, with Tiffany, Madison, and I quickly following suit. As we landed, I took a quick glimpse of the obstacle, only to recognize it as a rotten skeleton draped in a coat.
However, Amanda did not jump in time and tripped over.
Both of us landed on the floor. The other three did not notice us and was long gone. As a result, Amanda’s left ankle was fractured badly. To worsen the situation, the creature’s footstep became more thunderous.
My mind was spinning in chaos, trying to find a way out. There was no way we were running away with Amanda’s injured leg. I pulled her and dragged ourselves under the operation table next to us. I gestured at Amanda to stay silent. She slowly nodded. I tried aiming my gun outside, but immediately realized that my gun was gone. It probably flung when we fell.
We could hear the creature’s breath seconds after. We stayed still for as long as we could. It was so silent we could feel our heartbeats pounding — hard. As the creature came to a halt and started to scan the room, I gripped Amanda tighter. I could feel her tears flowing down my hand. We were visibly shaken from the terror of this imminent threat.
The abomination was standing right next to us. It felt like an eternity waiting for it to leave. Just as it was about to move, I accidentally crashed my head into the steel table, producing a clank so loud that my soul nearly left. The creature roared and looked downwards. The pair of its clumped black eyes glared at our pathetic position, filled with hatred and vengeance.
I pulled Amanda with me, fending off the creature with my legs. That’s over, I thought. Maybe all that was left was the final moment between me and Amanda before we succumb to our gruesome fate. I closed my eyes, about to accept my destiny when I hear footsteps approaching.
“You son of a-” …“BANG!” I immediately recognized the voice as Jack’s. The terrifying view of the creature was gone as soon as Jackson battered it with full force. The creature immediately flung towards him, lifting him into the air effortlessly.
Primary instinct kicked in and I lunged towards the creature. It noticed me at the last minute and evaded my charge. It stabbed me in my arm and I felt a rush of pain flowing through my body. The fangs grappled me and lifted me into the air.
The sense of impending doom came again. Once again I thought that I was going to meet my ultimate fate of being devoured by a monster. As it opened its wide jaw, about to consume my head, a deafening explosion reverberated my eardrum and I toppled onto the ground.
I immediately glanced at the creature. It appeared to fell onto the ground. Then, something touched me from behind. It started to hug all over me. But it was warm and soft… and I realized it was Amanda.
She gave me the gun that I lost. Sudden realization flushed over me and I hugged her back, thanking her for saving my life.
Then, something grabbed my right leg. It was that monster again. I frantically took the handgun and emptied it into the monster’s skull. Unexpectedly, Jack grabbed one of the surgery knives and stabbed the creature’s head.
It let out one final scream before succumbing to its death.
Jackson rushed towards us. The three of us were severely injured, Amanda being the worst of all. Both of us carried Amanda and rushed for the exit. Tiffany and Madison who witnessed the commotion since just now also provided escort.
As we reached the exit, we heard another screech. I let Tiffany carry Amanda as Madison and I jolted for the truck. I stepped into the driver’s seat and started the truck. As soon as the engine roared, I stepped on the pedal and drove next to Amanda.
As soon as everybody boarded and Jackson closed the door behind, I noticed a tall menacing figure standing by the entrance. The same pair of eyes gazed into my soul, with the same amount of hatred in its abyss pupils. I instinctively reversed the truck into the main road and switched to drive gear, leaving the creature and the hospital behind.
The figure of the abandoned hospital slowly fade into the horizon as time passed. We agreed to return home and not tell anybody anything. Amanda, Jackson and I would get treatment as soon as possible.
A week had passed since that traumatic incident. Jack and I fully recovered while Amanda is still receiving treatment. During the recovery phase I reviewed the contents Amanda filmed. It was as vivid as I experienced there, and it gave me chills. I also took some time to read the files I kept in my bag.
All of the reports left me flabbergasted. The report details looked as if they came straight out of fantasy. Based on these unbelievable reports, all of the documented patients had majestic capabilities incomprehensible to the human mind. Some were able to posses telekinetic ability, some had shapeshifting ability and others have incredible agility. Reading through the files I was incredibly tempted to document them into my journal.
Then came the last file, also the one Amanda gave me. As I grabbed it from my bag I noticed that it wrote “PATIENT CASE DP-3000”. I reviewed its content. It struck me that this case was similar to what we encountered during our visit.
“Patient DP-3000. Status: Alive.”
“Description: Patient was admitted on December 24th, 1952. Under Dr. Leeward’s observation, patient appeared to be severely mutated from excessive radioactive exposure. Under constant therapy, patient showed signs of shapeshifting over his body. Patient’s final form was completed on January 31st 1953, growing up to 8 feet in height and growing a pair of mantis-like claws on its limbs. Patient possesses incredible strength and requires strict containment procedures as patient often shows sign of aggressiveness.“
That was all the information I got. I could only hypothesize that the creature, or rather patient DP-3000 caused a mess in the hospital and killed everyone. And we were just too unlucky to encounter it again. Whatever, we were just thankful to make it out in one piece.
We were unsure whether to take the risk and spread it online and warn everyone or just bury it within ourselves.
That’s why I came here.
I’m here to warn you guys of an imminent danger lurking within this world. I know that you guys are reliable and would believe me. Remember, do not visit Clifford Hospital, unless you have a death wish.