|
|
July 7, 1985
by Cynthia Kim
Josh scraped his sneaker along the edge of the stair and watched crunchy
hunks of bird droppings fall to the ground. The basement of the abandoned
hospital was silent except for the sound of his friends rummaging through an
old treatment room. "Would you guys hurry up? It's a bunch of dead birds,
for crissakes."
A wingless, headless pigeon hurtled through the doorway to his right,
thudded off the wall of the corridor and landed at his feet. Scooping it
with his toe for extra height, he kicked it back into the room.
"Goooaaalll," Benny cried, as he ran out of the room, a dead pigeon held
high above his head, its wings fanned out raggedly in flight. Swinging
another by its single twisted leg, he said, "Check out this one, Josh.
Something ate its eyes out."
"Musta been a rat," Alex said, emerging with a half dozen pigeons. He lined
up the stiff carcasses on the floor, heads facing away from him. "Bet I can
hit the wall from here."
It was at least twenty yards to the end of the corridor and Josh figured
that the grimy water covering most of the rough tile would make it
impossible for the birds to slide that far. "You're on. Loser carries the
pack."
None of the birds made it more than halfway down the hall, but on the fourth
kick Alex's wet sneaker flew off and landed with a splash.
Benny burst out laughing. "I told you to tie your shoe, idiot."
"Shut up and go get it."
"You go get it." Benny, the younger of the two brothers, laughed as Alex
hopped down hall, careful not to let his shoeless foot touch the ground.
"You go get it," Alex repeated in a sing-song voice. He was less than five
feet from his sneaker when a pigeon swooped down the stairwell and rocketed
into the corridor with a shriek. Wobbling on one foot, he thrust both hands
out, but the slick tile wall offered no traction.
"Shit!" Though he jumped to his feet, his jeans and T-shirt were soaked by
the slimy brown sludge of water, mildew, rust and pigeon droppings that
flowed through the basement halls of the old asylum like a toxic river.
"Dumb ass, I told you to tie your shoe."
With a growl, Alex launched his sneaker at Benny then bolted down the hall.
His wet sock flopping off the end of his foot, he was no match for Benny,
who took the stairs two at time to the top floor.
Not eager to make himself an easy target, Josh dropped the pack on the
bottom step and called back, "Loser carries the pack."
From the fourth floor, the two boys could hear Alex on the stairs. Stomp.
Squish. Stomp. Squish.
"Hurry up Alex, we gotta take the pictures before dark if we want our thirty
bucks."
Josh punched Benny's shoulder. "Lighten up. I ain't gonna protect you if he
decides to pound you into the ground when he gets up here."
"I don't need no protection."
"Yeah sure. Gimme the map."
Benny pulled a sheet of notebook paper from his back pocket and unfolded it.
"Where are we?"
"Here, I think." Josh pointed to the L-shaped building in the middle of the
crudely drawn map. "Which one is the morgue?"
"The one by the pond."
Josh squinted through the barred window, comparing the map to the cluster
of brick buildings scattered across the hospital grounds. Turning the map
sideways, he studied the buildings again before pointing to a bungalow
nestled in a grove of overgrown trees. "That's the one."
"Hey, what happened to Alex?"
The stomp-squish-stomp in the stairwell had stopped.
"We better check. C'mon."
They found Alex on the stairs, midway between the second and third floors,
running his finger over dripping red letters scrawled on the yellowed wall.
I TASTE LIKE THE DREAMS OF MAD CHILDREN
Mouthing the words, Josh touched the long red streaks below the letters to
reassure himself that they had long since dried. The wall was cold and
slippery, like a dead jellyfish, but the letters didn't smear under his
fingertips.
"I bet he wrote it," Alex said, tracing the M in MAD with his thumb.
Benny's breath was hot on Josh's neck when he spoke. "I bet he wrote it in
blood."
It looks like blood, but it's not, Josh reassured himself. The red is too
bright. And there's too much of it. "I can't believe you guys fall for that
crap. Let's go."
They continued down the stairs, Benny and Josh in front, Alex trudging
behind them. "Hey Josh, you don't believe in the Long Lane Butcher?"
Josh wrinkled his freckled nose and shook his head. "Nope. Sure he killed
that lady here, but they got him locked up somewhere upstate."
"Uh uh, he escaped a long time ago. They never found him."
"Right, Alex. Last week you said he was a ghost that haunts the morgue."
"Benny said that." Swatting his brother across the back of the head as they
exited the building, he added, "Only dorks believe in ghosts."
"If I'm such a dork, how come I'm the one who got us thirty bucks for taking
pictures of a dumb old morgue?"
"Because you're a lucky dork."
Josh laughed at Alex's quick comeback "Hey Benny, where'd you find this guy
anyhow?"
"He owns the comic book shop on Blue Hills." Benny jumped off the third to
last step and slammed his body against the exit door, popping it open so
hard it crashed against the wall of the building. "Josh, what's a morgue?"
"It's where they deep dead people until they bury them. I don't know why
anyone would want a picture of one."
"Geez Josh, haven't you ever seen the guy," Alex cut in, "He's freaky
looking. I bet he gets off on dead people."
Josh laughed along with Alex, not wanting to look like a wuss for thinking
the idea was more gross than funny.
As they crossed the quadrangle, Josh breathed in the humid summer air, a
welcome contrast to the rotting stench that blanketed the floors of the Long
Lane Asylum for the Criminally Insane. He wondered if the Butcher got off on
dead people.
Every boy in Somerville knew the legend of the Butcher, even if the details
changed with every telling. The only clear fact was that he had been a
patient who had killed and dismembered another patient, just before the
hospital was shut down by the state.
"Hey guys, where do you think he buried her?"
"A little bit here, a little bit there."
Benny laughed at his own joke but the thought that they might be walking
over the spot where the woman's hand or head was buried made Josh wish he'd
gone swimming with his sister. "Did he really cut her up and bury her in
garbage bags?"
"Yep, everything except her teeth."
"You mean except seven of her teeth," Benny reminded them.
"I wonder how he got the teeth out?"
"Probably the same way he cut up the bones."
"Yeah," Josh agreed with a grimace, "but what would he want with a bunch of
teeth?"
"Maybe he was missing a few." Benny smiled broadly, showing off his missing
front teeth.
"That's sick."
"Shouldn't we be there by now?" Alex stopped and wiped his nose with a
filthy hand.
Standing in the shadow of a tower topped by a glass turret, Josh scratched
his chest and looked around. He was about to suggest doubling back when a
man in a janitor's uniform emerged from the tower.
"Can I help you boys?"
Oh great! Now we're going to get arrested for trespassing. Trying to play it
cool, Josh asked, "Uh, yessir, do you know where the morgue is?"
The man slowly looked each boy over then, with a frown, settled on Josh.
"What do you boys want with the morgue?"
"We need to take some pictures."
"For a dare," Alex added quickly.
"Like some kind of initiation?"
"Yeah, kinda. Um, we're in a hurry, so if you know . . . ?"
"Sure do, Building 307." He pointed down the hill and Josh shuddered at the
sight of his right index finger. Just below the second knuckle was a pointed
bony stump. "Right down that hill."
"307?"
"That's right, three-oh-lucky-seven." He put his hand in his pocket before
Josh could see his other fingers. "But be sure to get out before dark.
Wouldn't want me to lock you in, would you?"
"Yessir," Josh stammered as the boys broke into a run down the hill.
The morgue reminded Josh of Alex and Benny's house, a small brick cape with
dormered windows. The door was unlocked and when he pushed it open, a blast
of hot stale air rushed out.
Alex dropped the pack by the front door and stripped off his filthy shirt
before taking out the camera. He snapped two shots of the entrance and one
more of the interior from the doorway before entering the short hallway.
"Let's get the pictures and get out of here."
"Yeah, that guy gave me the creeps."
"Did you see the way his finger was hacked off?"
"Maybe that's why he's such a rotten janitor," Benny joked as they entered
the small autopsy room that occupied the right half of the building, "He
sure hasn't cleaned anything around here lately."
Dust coated the counters, rotting body parts sat in jars of cloudy amber
liquid. Only the operating table was free of debris.
Alex moved around the room snapping photos while Benny yanked open a long,
flat drawer. Inside were shiny surgical instruments, row upon row of blades
and forceps on a crisp blue surgical drape.
"Weird."
"That ain't nothing. Look at this." Josh ran his finger down a row of small
wooden drawers, like those of a library card catalog. The front of each
drawer had a card inserted in a slot. Nearly all bore a date neatly printed
in an identical left-handed slant. 04/07/79 . . . 07/25/81 . . . 02/07/82 .
. . 10/17/82 . . .07/01/84
Alex set the camera down. "What's in them?"
As the other boys huddled behind him, Josh pulled out a drawer and then
another and another. The click and clatter of bone on wood drowned out the
sound of the boys' thudding hearts as they opened drawer after drawer of
teeth.
* * *
The End