Hello Reddit,
I have never spoken to anyone about this, and I’d never imagined I’d grow some balls and type it out for the whole world to read. Something happened to me back in 1981 (when I was considerably younger). I was working as a supply clerk at the local hospital when something occurred that still gives me nightmares to this day.
I was working in the basement when the power went out. I was taking inventory of some sample vials, when I was bathed in darkness without warning. I called out to my supervisor, but the only thing that answered me was silence.
My first three months at that hospital had been tumultuous to say the least. Alcoholics who had come in looking for a fight, addicts who had fallen off the wagon, and teens who had tried to get out of their abusive households by cutting themselves out of the picture. Emotions were always at a high, and the number of staff was way too low to accommodate the growing population of the area. The power going out was one of the least concerning things that could have happened.
I remember grabbing a flashlight from the mandatory Workplace Safety cabinet and I ventured into the hallway to find someone who knew what was going on, and hopefully when the power was going to return.
I hadn’t noticed any damage until I climbed the stairway to the first floor. The hallways of the hospital were left littered with all sorts of debris. Medical equipment lay cracked open on the floor, beds lay unkempt in the hallway, and there was a strange wet sound of which I couldn’t quite place the origin of. I wondered to myself what may have happened in the short few hours that I had been gone, and where all of the patients had been moved to in such a hurry.
A large gust swept over the hallway, and I was nearly knocked off of my feet. That’s when I noticed the noise. The clattering of objects and slamming of cabinet doors echoed from far down the hallway. It was getting closer, I had no clue what to expect.
What little light was left in the hallway began to fade. The wind grew stronger, and the room grew darker. The noise was deafening when I had decided to run away, nearly tripping over the mess that filled the hallway.
I reached the end of the hall, and turned toward the cafeteria. I carried on through the sturdy double-doors as the din behind me swallowed the hallway, the coarse wind bit at my ears and screamed into my bones. The tempest was so powerful that as I unlatched the fire doors, they opened instantly and were blown flat against the walls as if they were made of paper.
I could find no shelter except for the small walk-in refrigerator that was in the kitchen. I could still hear things being thrown around outside the heavy steel door, but I decided to take a breath and figure out how to get to safety.
The easiest way to get out of the hospital from the cafeteria was through the emergency wing. I had to cross through the administrative bullpen to get there, which was presumably severely damaged, if the same force had hit it as well. The fans of the walk-in spun to life and the commotion outside seemed to fade below the gentle white noise of the refrigeration unit. I was surprised considering the rest of the building’s power was out. The back up system as on, but power must have been localized to necessary areas. But why was the power out in the first place? What was doing all of this damage? Was there a storm on the forecast that I had missed? Was there a tornado ripping through the building I was standing in, and I had missed the sirens?
When the noises outside the walk-in door had died down, I determined it was time to move. I slowly opened the walk-in door, remembering what the gale had done to the double doors in the hallway. There was only a light breeze at that point, and I began to move quickly towards the bullpen in an attempt to escape.
The glass windows and doors to the bullpen had been blown out into the hallways. The desks and chairs that had once been in neat rows had now been thrown about and gutted, their contents strewn about the large carpeted space. I entered the room and climbed over the piles of debris. To my horror, I was not alone.
In the center of the debris, a man (or, what was left of him) lay spread-eagle on the floor. He was wearing a bloodstained uniform, with a name tag emblazoned with “D. Gonzales : Security officer”. The debris around him had a thorough coating of viscera that resembled the texture and shade of strawberry jam. His ribcage had been torn open in a violent fashion, so violent in fact that his sternum lay approximately six feet in front of him. The blood had soaked deeply into the carpet, and his face was affixed with an expression I could not describe in any other way than pure, unadulterated horror.
I turned and vomited profusely. I had never seen a body up close before, much less a one in this condition. I stumbled over more debris and into a small adjacent office off of the right side of the bullpen. I tried to escape the pungent meaty odor of dead flesh, but it seemed to follow me. My brain started to search for possible explanations for this grotesque display but I could find no supposition that made sense. It was almost as if he had “popped”, for lack of a better term. What was happening here? Why all of the wind? What killed that poor man?
My thoughts became clouded as the white noise of wind began to fill my ears again. A gust slammed the door shut, and closed me into the dark room. I rushed over and attempted to free myself, but it seemed to be held shut. I peeked through the blinds to see if something had fallen in front of the door, but it was unhindered besides the gale pushing against it. The desks and chairs began to dance throughout the room, and with them, the remains of the security guard, who was swept effortlessly out the double doors into the hallway.
Before I could fully process what was happening, a woman ran into the bullpen. She was of fairly short stature, she had white blonde hair, and was dressed in light blue scrubs. She was screaming, and seemed panicked, as if she was running from something. I watched through the thin plastic blinds as she was blown over by the tempest and pinned against a broken desk.
Then, the smoke appeared. It was a deep, tarry black, unlike anything that I had ever seen. It began as a slender tendril slithering into the room, unaffected by the gale that surrounded it. Soon, it became as thick as a tree trunk, and occupied the majority the room. As it grew, I wondered how long it truly stretched. Within a matter of seconds, it circled the room and approached the trapped nurse. The smoke fed itself into her mouth, foot by foot. Soon, her skin began to bubble, and her abdomen grew distended in a way that seemed anatomically impossible. The pain that her face exhibited was unimaginable. I could do nothing but sit there and watch as her chest exploded into a messy, wet pile on the floor.
The entity emerged from the new cavernous exit wound and drifted down the hallway towards emergency. As it floated on, the creature threaded its way through the nurse’s corpse, its tail perfectly following the path that the head had set for it. The last of the smoke moved out of its lifeless victim and meandered down the hallway, and the wind following behind it. The gale subsided, and the pressure on the door released. The only noise I could hear was the dripping of blood from the nurse’s butchered remains.
Panic swept over me. I exited the door and began to sprint down the hallway I had come from. I needed to find a way out. I didn’t want to end up like them, I didn’t want to die. I had run out of breath long ago, but my fear motivated me to continue running. My footfalls echoed through the destroyed hallways, and I only slowed down to climb over debris. I turned a corner, following an emergency exit sign on the wall, but discovered nothing but a wall of destroyed hospital beds blocking my path. I ran in the other direction, praying that there was another exit on the opposite side of the hospital. I saw another exit sign, and bolted down the hallway towards it.
I hadn’t noticed that, in my panic, I had made my way to the front atrium of the hospital, I was relieved when I saw the daylight shining through the first and second story windows. They were surprisingly intact, considering the state of the rest of the building. That relief was quickly stifled by the howling of wind that had emerged around me. I tried to run for the door, but every step I took landed in place. The wind was pulling me back into the hallway from which I had just emerged. I grabbed onto the nearby reception desk, wind whipping around me, and I tried to climb under it to safety.
I saw the black serpentine smoke emerge from the balcony above me. It was barreling towards me. I tried to scream, but it had already burrowed deep into my esophagus by the time I could. It smelled of wet cigarettes and rotten eggs. I could feel it squeezing into the bottom of my lungs, and filling every inch of them. It pulsated and quivered as it forced itself deeper and deeper into my chest. The pain was worse than I had ever experienced. I was suffocating on something that I could not dislodge, and I was certain I was going to die.
That’s when the doors to the atrium burst open, and a swarm of figures silhouetted against the sunlight entered. I could now see it was a sea of men in black. They wore unmarked hazard suits, bearing what I can only describe as Vacuum cleaners attached to their backpacks. One of them pointed the device at me, and the creature was sucked out of my lungs and into the tube. As it exited my body, I coughed and sprayed blood all over the tile in front of me. I blacked out in the pool of my own blood.
And that’s all I can remember. Next thing I knew, I was awake in my bed. The news anchors said it was an uncontrolled fire. The doctor said that I inhaled too much smoke and barely made it out alive. I don’t believe them. I know what I saw. People say it was a dream, or PTSD, but I know that I was a witness to something extraordinary. If anyone has any information regarding the events of November 7th, 1981 at Memorial Hospital in Ardmore, Oklahoma; Please contact me. I want to know the truth.