The Sanatorium of Murcia Page 5

  Kevin crawled across the floor to the window. -Stay here honey- he had told Leah, and she had grabbed his arm. He pulled hard and passed Gianna's corpse and Riley, who anguished, did not stop crying.

  Once he reached the point, he tried to look out of the window, but he did not dare. His temples were two hammers, and sweat chafed his eyes. Finally, while everyone kept screaming and crawling on the floor like recently trampled worms, Kevin reached out to the edge of the window opening. He did not feel any whistling. Nothing happened. In this way, he secured himself and cautiously raised his head until his frizzy hair appeared at the height of the window opening. He did not feel anything that brushes his hair. His instinct gave him an adrenaline boost, and he poked his little eyes like those of a rabbit that has just escaped from a dog, inside its den.

  And then he saw it.

  In the bushes, illuminated by the miserable light of the moon, he noticed the silhouette of a man with a gun in his hand. He supposed it was a crossbow because bypassing Gianna's side he had seen a short, stout arrow that ended in a thick but sharp point.

  This silhouette looked like a formation of ashes by the color acquired under the glow of the full moon. Then he saw the silhouette rise and walk towards the window with what he had already imagined in his hands. A crossbow and sticking out of his back were several arrows.

  - "Listen to everyone! There's a man out there with a crossbow, and he's coming here," -Kevin yelled, bending down again. He sat on the floor and let himself fall back against the wall. The blow was dull, and his breathing was still agitated. - "There is a crazy man out there."

  They all fell silent at once, except for the whimpers of the girls and Riley sobbing beside her beloved who had already lost all the blood from her body.

  - "What do we do?" -Leah asked almost whispering.

  - "I do not know. Maybe to wait," -Kevin said in a tight spot.

  - "We cannot stand here," -Chase whimpered, spreading his arms. His shirt was a dark stain. - "That madman can kill us all."

  - "And how do you know that?" -Kevin asked.

  - "Gianna is dead," -Riley said, her eyes bloodshot. He still held Gianna's head in his lap.

  -If you say that he has a crossbow, he can only shoot at us from a distance, it is difficult for him to do it up close and if we all join we could stop him" -Luke explained, touching his black glasses maniacally. His heart was out of control, but his voice was well modulated, and it seems he was calmer than he was.

  - "The crazy guy cannot get through this window," -Kevin said. Evidently, he has counted us, and he knows we are five now. It could be a hunter who has seen many horror movies."

  - "Or the janitor of this Sanitarium," -Taylor said, the other blonde in the group, but with a higher IQ than the unfortunate Gianna. Her hair flashed for a moment, and her gray eyes went out.

  Kevin was staring at her.

  - " Are we with the urban legends?" -Kevin was angry.

  -I only said that it could be the concierge, nothing more..."

  "At least he's not a ghost," -Violet moaned as she fingered the ground and drew strange shapes at an inopportune moment.

  Chase laughed as tears spilt from the edges of his eyes. He was living a series of strange sensations that he never thought existed, cried as well as laughed while the cold air made to bristle his neck's hair, and the sweat burned his forehead and cheeks. He thought for a moment that he was suffering an attack of madness.

  Kevin did the most significant neglect of his life. Lean back to the window. The guy kept moving towards the building. He thought he was a guy because he did not know him. For Kevin and the others, Carlos, a neighbor of “Becerros”, had become the crazy guy with a crossbow in his restless hands. He saw it. He saw how the silhouette had taken shape. As it enlarged and began to hear the chinorros squeal under their heavy boots. The guy was already a body blurred between gray and black. The guy had already earned the nickname of the madman. The madman of Espuña Mountains, who had them scared inside the Sanatorium that received them at six with a spectacular Christ who did not warn them of anything. Now Gianna was dry. Coarse. Empty. Dead. And the guy kept walking towards them. Kevin crouched down again and leaned his back against the wall. His hands were sweating, and he looked at Leah, who was whimpering in a corner, under the umbrella of white light. He had to decide, and his neurons were motionless. They did not connect with anything. My brain was empty. And his feet also began to tremble. The noise of the footsteps was getting louder and louder. Perfectly audible. The guy would be three meters or maybe two meters. And suddenly something happened.

  They stopped listening to the steps, and in their place, there was room for laments.

  - Now you come? - -said a voice that sounded interwoven by several torn notes. Had they really heard it?

  - "It's the guy from the outside. He is crazy. His madness has distorted his voice. Maybe ... " -and Kevin hesitated a moment to shut up finally.

  Riley yelled an insult while he raised his clenched fist, with the nails pounded into the palm of his hand. On one side shine a thread of very red blood. Scandalous.

  - 'I am going to kill you!" -He screamed, but there was no response, except for the echo like that one produced by a valley of pointed mountains. It was the hallway, and something or someone answered.

  Are you here now?

  Again, the eyes of everyone scrutinized the others. Their scrawny faces deserved a break, but they were still tense. The heart was galloping on most of them and beating in hand, on the rest.

  - "I know you are there," -said the man's voice. Carlos. His voice was grave, but growly and seemed brittle.

  Kevin thought he was speaking for them, but he was wrong. Now they did not know. All, in due time.

  - "And I'm here, waiting for you, you are fucking son of a bitch!" -Riley yelled, spitting saliva.

  - "They are with you," -the voice answered.

  Suddenly, everyone felt like the air was cooling at times and felt chills. Now they were sure that there was a crazy man out there and more than one wondered if besides of lepers, the Sanatorium had housed people with mental problems.

  - "They're with you," -Kevin repeated in a whisper drowned out by the silence. That was almost impossible.

  They were trapped.

  Without escape.

  And with death in front of their eyes.

  - "What the fuck did Kevin mean?" -Chase's eyes peeked a millimeter from his usual position.

  - "I do not know."

  - "What? are there more crazy ones like him?"

  - "I do not know."

  - Come on, Kevin. You are the captain. You always take us out of all."

  - "This time I'm reduced to shit," -Kevin said, his eyes wet. It was something unlike him.

  - "It's not possible," -Luke suggested, as he removed his glasses. - "You cannot collapse. Not now. If not, we are predestined to die. You decide."

  - "Nice speech," -Jackson agreed, looking at a bat that was unaware of everything that was happening. It was hung upside down, and absurdly he thought, why did not the blood rise to its head? It was normal that he did not get an answer.

  - "It's not a moment of talk" -Alaina moaned like a dark stain on the wall.

  - "Face up to me," -the guy's voice said. Carlos. That sounded barely two meters from the window now.

  This menace disconcerted them even more.

  - "You abandoned me, and you left." -The voice was almost inaudible, calm and growly.

  Had they heard it this time?

  Sadie did.

  - "Have you heard that?"

  - "What?" -Chase was touching his face to make sure he was awake. Rivers of sweat ran down his cheeks.

  - "To the guy?" -Kevin asked.

  - "Do not" -Sadie had the neck raised as if the stretch of hair at that time.

  - "What the fuck is wrong with you?" -Jackson had his white palms pointing at the ceiling.

  Now there was chaos and confusion.

  It seemed they were a
ll crazy.

  And they were not alone.

  22

  Tormented. As difficult as it seemed, Carlos was tortured by the continuous silhouettes appearing before his eyes. She was there, right next to that girl. He fired in the right direction, and it was only explained, that the non-human form deflected the path of the arrow. Or was he delirious? Standing in front of the window that showed an intense white light that radiated everywhere, he was determined to jump the window and continue shooting arrows at those elongated figures. However, he decided that it was better to enter through another of the windows, which, although dark, were open like the mouth of a well.

  The legend spoke of a lady in black who walked through the corridors at night. And that was precisely what he had seen, a lady in black. But the arrow pierced the skull of that poor wretch, who irrigated fell to the groundstroke down in a blow that he heard. Like the head breaking when the arrow pierced it.

  And again, he felt like urinating. He was suffering from a urinary incontinence due to an infection and was peeing in bubbling. And while he resumed his way to the farthest window, on the west side, it seemed to him that again, his pants were wet and hot.

  In his sick mind, there were those shadows and the uncertainty of the future of those young people, for whom for a lengthened moment, he felt sadness.

  23

  - "I think he's gone," -Kevin said, crouched under the window, his back against the wall. Sweat ran through every pore of his body, and his shirt was a big dark stain under those lantern lights.

  Chase was shivering, scared and cold.

  - "What the hell is happening?" -Chase asked loudly.

  - "And what the fuck I know!" Kevin yelled. - "I already told you before."

  - "I'm going to kill him," -Riley repeated and again with Gianna almost purple, on her lap. The blood was beginning to curdle and become a jelly-like mass. He looked at his hands and saw that he had them completely bathed in blood. A blood that was already dry.

  - "The guy is crazy. Talk about them. Who is he talking about? -Sadie wanted to know.

  - "I do not know," -Kevin said. - "He said they are with us ..."

  - "I can answer that," -Riley said, surprising the others. His restless eyes had widened. - "I think that guy out there suffers paranoia. A mental disorder."

  - "That's very good, but we still do not know the meaning of his words," -Luke explained. - "Maybe he means more members of a group of four more morons or God knows how many more ..."

  - "I think I know what does he mean," -Sadie cut him off, breathing falteringly.

  Kevin looked at her with a serious demeanour.

  - "What does he mean?" -Leah asked, still huddled in a corner, leaning against the wall.

  - "To those voices."

  Everyone was stunned or better yet, stupefied.

  - "What the fuck do you mean?" -Alaina brought her trembling fingers to her frizzy hair in a thoughtful act.

  - "Have not you heard something at some moment?"

  They all fell silent.

  Finally, and after what seemed like a long and ominous silence, Violet broke the ice.

  - "Yeah right. The crazy outside. -Her finger pointed to the window.

  -I was waiting, and you did not come back.

  That soft, sweet voice ran through the corridors again until it reached the room in the form of a redundant echo.

  - "Silence," -Sadie whispered, taking Jayden's hand that was right beside her. Her eyes moved nervously in their sockets, and her heart quickened even more.

  - "But what the fuck is going on tonight?" -Chase was almost on the verge of crying or maybe madness.

  - "What you expected from Murcia," -Jayden said with his peculiar tranquility.

  - "Murcia is beautiful," the slogan said," -Riley purred with tears in his eyes. - "Who was the idiot that decided this destiny?"

  - "Everybody!" -Kevin yelled. - "We all decided to come to Spain and more specifically to Murcia. It was an agreed decision. Also, crazy like that one out there." -His finger pointed up, over his head. - "There are everywhere. It could have happened to us in Florida, California or China."

  - "There are insane people everywhere," -Luke agreed, his trembling hands putting his glasses on his long nose.

  Like a blast of hot air, like a whirlwind of leaves, a thunderous blow ran down the corridor and reached them in the form of an echo that faded after leaving the window.

  - "He's inside the building!" -Kevin exclaimed and crawled quickly towards Leah. On that short trip, he remembered when he was small, very small, ran like this when he went in search of his father's arms and rubbed his knees with the wooden floor.

  The others rushed to pick up their flashlights without knowing exactly what to do. Their hearts showed in an invisible hand from where they could see from all angles how it was beaten and inflated like a balloon about to explode.

  You abandoned me and I stayed with her.

  Sadie heard it again.

  It was a warm voice, like a whisper that might well be the result of stress, but she was sure it was not like that.

  - "I've heard that voice again," -she said.

  24

  Carlos had entered through the window that was located on the corner of the Sanatorium, in the west wing. The mean moonlight did not help him much, for he stumbled and fell flat on his face. Even that, he was already inside. The crossbow fell far away like a projectile forward, and the arrows spread on the ground. With his eyes covered by shadows and a lacerating pain in his hip, he had to feel the ground to get back his weapon and arrows. And when he stood up and the moonlight penetrated through the window gap, focusing on the long corridor, he saw them again. This time there were several and she was not alone.

  The lady in black.

  25

  - "Fast, we have to move. That guy is in here." -Kevin was exalted, and it was the first time the captain showed himself like this in front of everyone. - "We have to hide."

  - "Would not it be better to get out of here?" -Jackson asked. - "If that guy is inside, we go out."

  - "Don't think it's so easy, that guy like you said, is in here, but I'm sure he moves like a fish in the water."

  - "The same thing can happen here inside ..."

  - 'Shut up!" -Kevin exclaimed, cutting him off. He was already standing next to his girlfriend. He kissed her on the wet lips and said to her. - "Everything will be okay baby."

  - "I hope so," -she said.

  - "Take your flashlights and mobile phones. Let's go for a walk," -Kevin ordered as he bent down to dig in his backpack.

  - "Good Heavens! It is true. Since we arrived here, we had not remembered that we have mobile phones. We could have called the crane ..."

  - "I did not have the phone number at the time," -Kevin cut Chase off.

  - "Now we can call for help to the security forces," -Chase added, with his cell phone in his hand.

  - "Have you checked if you have coverage?" -Kevin gestured with the brow.

  Chase looked at the touchscreen of his phone. There were five stripes.

  - "Yes, of course! I have coverage!"

  - "Well, call whoever you want."

  - "What is the emergency number here?'

  - "Do you know?"

  Chase shrugged.

  - "Wow! It seems that nobody knows any useful phone number for these circumstances," -Riley grumbled. - "I saw them in the brochure when I arrived at the San Javier airport, but, I do not remember them. Here it is called the local or urban police and civil guard, I think. There was also an emergency number with three figures, and as ridiculous as that, I do not remember."

  - "That's great," -Jackson complained, also looking at his phone.

  - "At least, if we get lost in here or if by chance we separate, we can contact each other. In horror movies, they always go lost and die in empty rooms," -Sadie explained.

  - "No wonder that you saw a lot of movies," -Jayden said. He was crouching in his backpack. He had found a small knife. He di
d not remember throwing it in his luggage, and he could not understand how the metal control did not detect it in the airports. - "Guys, I have a knife." -He raised it in the air and the blade shone eerily. It was the only weapon they had.

  Kevin nodded.

  - "Didn't you think of looking for those damn phone numbers in Google? -Alaina asked, shaking her head furtively.

  Chase glanced at his cell phone.

  - "Fuck, there's no signal!"

  - "What?!" -Kevin wrinkled his forehead while the drops of sweat almost frozen, at that moment, it was running down.

  - "Who is the jinx," -said Jackson.

  - 'I do not give a fuck if there is a signal or not. I just know I'm going to kill that son of a bitch!" -He finally stopped shaking Gianna's head and laid her gently on the mattress, soaked in already dried blood. A tear sprang from his right eye and fell on her cheek. The fucking arrow was still there. In her head and the vision of it was not too pleasant.

  - "Fuck! why everything is so complicated?" -Chase asked, speaking alone, right in the center of the group. His eyes were fixed on the screen of his phone. There was not a single signal stripe. With his chubby finger touched the Chrome icon, the browser, and after opening gave a connection error. In an instinctive act, he kicked the floor, which caused a cloud of dust to rise around his right ankle.

  - "Come on, get into this cage," -Kevin said with the flashlight focused on the long corridor.

  All of them moved behind him.

  Leah discovered again the Kevin she really knew, to the man with the cold mind and the hot hands. She would have bet heavily that his boyfriend had inexplicably blocked for some time.

  A pale shadow, blurred and without profiles moved in the back of the room. Sadie had thought that this was already a product of the imagination and the tension they were experiencing. Chase followed her with his gaze and then turned to where she was looking, but saw nothing and wondered, why the hell his girlfriend had been so dazed for a few seconds.