It was a dark quiet night when I first went into Sunland Hospital. To my knowledge, I’d never been in the presence of a real ghost before. By the end of that first trip to Sunland, I knew that I had.
There were four of us in all. Myself, and three of my friends. One was a fraidy cat named Danny. One was a skeptic named Joe and the other was an ex Soldier brute named Lyle. I had talked them into accompanying me to do a ghost hunt inside the notorious Sunland Hospital. It was around Halloween time and I thought we could get a scare while I tried to prove to myself whether or not the paranormal was actually real.
I had two tape recorders with me. One had a microphone and the other had none. Not even a built in mic. I used a fresh new tape in both to rule out some kind of leftover sound from a previous recording. I also had a compass to detect magnetic field anomalies. Of course we also had flashlights and a camera.
Sunland itself was located in a wooded area in Pine Hills, Florida. It had been a normal hospital at some point then was converted to a mental hospital. Years later, according to rumor it had been shut down due to the rampant abuse of patients. At the time we went inside to conduct our investigation, it had been closed for a while and was deteriorating quickly.
The years had been hard on Sunland. Most of the windows were broken or dusted over. Vines had crawled up a good portion of the structure over the years and water had found its way through the roof and was dripping down through the floors to the basement. Ceiling tiles had fallen down all over the place and mold had found a home on numerous walls inside.
A eight foot high fence had been erected around the entire building and a security guard patrolled the perimeter in a golf cart now and then. We’d have to dodge him to get in and out unseen.
We parked a good distance away and walked quietly along the main roadway that led to the parking lot. We slipped under the fence by having one man pull it up and outward which gave just enough room to get under. We approached the steps that led to the main entrance. One of the large doors in front was already open and the darkness inside emanated a foreboding welcome.
Inside, the pale green paint had been peeing off the walls. The floor was littered with ceiling tiles that had fallen down over the years. There were a few smatterings of spray paint here and there where some punks had come in to leave their mark. At the back of the lobby darkened hallways went off to the sides in opposing directions. We took the one to the left.
The dim light from the front doors faded into black as we slowly crept down the corridor. We turned on our flashlights which painted the walls with round glowing images of the corroding interior.
To our right we came upon an open door. Inside we found a small room with nothing in it except a table which was in the blocked out shape of a human form with padding for the head and leather straps along where the limbs would sit. It was clear this was used to keep unruly patients still, probably for injections or electro-shock therapy.
Further down the hallway there was a large room in the corner of the building with huge windows along two walls. Several of these were broken and the floor was covered in litter and broken glass. In the center of the room, backlit by the pale glow of the outside ambient light stood a large empty crib adorned with tattered cloth and dust. It made me sad to think that children used to sleep and play there and that all those hours of happiness had now been replaced with quiet gloom.
I was busy taking some pictures as the rest of the men went down a short, wide stairwell to the basement floor. A minute later I was following their path and had reached the top of the stairs when Lyle hurriedly scampered back up and stopped in front of me.
“I’m getting out of here,” he said, “there’s something down there. I never felt anything like that before in my life.”
I thought he was joking at first. After all, he’d been in his share of scary situations while in the Army which he told me about on numerous occasions.
I asked him what had happened and he explained that he’d started down a hallway when he had gotten the distinct impression that someone was standing right in front of him, yet there was no one there. He said this was more than the hee-bee-gee-bees, it was certain.
He said he was going back and that he’d meet us at the rear door at the end of the hallway which we had decided to use when we exited the building in hopes of avoiding the security guard. I asked him which hallway it was so that I could check it out and he pointed down the stairwell to the left.
I descended the darkened stairs and noticed the other two guys to my right inside a doorway at the bottom of the stairs. They called me over to them while pointing at something inside. I peeked through the door to find a short hallway with a number of doorways on one side. The nearest door was open and they were motioning me to look inside. I stuck my head in briefly. It was a padded cell. Just like in the movies. It looked frightening in the dark, lit only by my flashlight.
They went on to check out the cafeteria while I headed for the hallway that Lyle had told me about. It was about ten feet down the corridor when I felt it. I turned my tape recorders on and began to speak to it. I asked it what it’s name was repeatedly.
There was a sensation was like someone right up in your face. Everything in my being was pushing me to flee. I resisted only because I really wanted to try to get something on tape.
I stood there for about five minutes with goosebumps, neck hairs standing on end, and a sense of extreme danger. But I could see the floor. It wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t see anything at all. The hallway went back quite aways but there was no one in front of me.
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I walked briskly, skipping occasionally to try to speed up my pace without having to break out into a full on run. I scurried back up the stairs, down the side hallway, and met the others at the rear door.
Reviewing the tape I had made with the microphone connected, I heard myself asking the questions but there was no answer on the tape. I had set both tape recorders’ counters to zero. That way I could fast forward to the spot where I was asking the spirit questions on the one tape, and then fast forward to the same number on the counter on the tape with no input. Doing that, I should be at the same time on both. Using that method I listened to the tape that should be blank, and there it was. A quiet voice. Speaking calmly. It was so quiet that I couldn’t tell what it was saying, but it was a human voice. It was the voice of a man.
I was so intrigued that I had to go back and see if I could get more evidence. None of the other men would go with me the second time, so I went alone. This time I had to cut through the woods which surrounded the building on three sides in order to avoid the night security guard.
There was a dirt path already there in the woods which rounded the sides and behind the hospital. I ran along it as if I was already familiar with it. I did so in the dark without my flashlight on because I didn’t want to alert the security guard to my presence.
When I reached the rear door, I cautiously emerged from the treeline and slipped under the fencing. The door was unlocked and I opened it slowly to keep it from making much noise. I closed it behind me and slowly walked along the dark hallway.
At the far end there was a stairway going up one floor. I decided to go up there to try to get something on tape before searching for the basement hallway again.
I sat down at the top of the stairs on the floor and prepared my tape recorder. Suddenly I heard footsteps coming from the hallway I had just walked in through. I stared at the mouth of the corridor, looking down the stairs. It was pitch black. Whoever it was wasn’t using a flashlight.
I hadn’t heard the door open and I know I closed it, but I suppose it’s possible the guard had come in quietly. But why would he do that without using his light? If he had seen me come in, he wouldn’t have known if I were a crazy person or a killer or not. For all he knew I was hiding in one of the side rooms along the corridor and might attack him when he got right past the door to the room I might be in. It’s highly unlikely then that he’d enter the building without his light on.
The footsteps were clearly dress shoes on the hard flooring. Nothing else sounds like that. Ghost hunters, punks, vagrants, and drug addicts were all highly unlikely to wear dress shoes when entering an abandoned building. So it wasn’t them.
After a few minutes the footsteps stopped. The entire time they had been getting closer to my position but no one had emerged from the end of the hallway. I didn’t hear any of the doors to any of the rooms down the hallway open. Even if they had managed to open one without making any noise, the footsteps would have stopped as they opened the door and then started again as they walked into the room. This did not happen. The steps never paused until they stopped. The steps had not retreated back down the hallway the way they had come and they never started up again.
I sat there, afraid to move for about an hour in the darkness. I knew as soon as I moved they would hear me. Why they were standing still in the darkness I didn’t know. Eventually I decided that it had to either be a ghost or the security guard. If the latter I was going to get arrested for trespass. If a ghost, I might get a fright but I probably wouldn’t die.
I wasn’t going to sit there all night so I turned the flashlight on and shone it right at the opening to the corridor where I held it as I walked down the stairs. I wanted the guard to know I was there so as not to startle him. I got to the hallway and shone the light down it. No one was there.
As I walked back to the door I noticed the floor was covered with dust. I could see my own footprints in it from when I had come in. There was another set of prints which started part way down the hall and ended abruptly before it had reached the end of the corridor.