The Loving Silence

Chapter 48

Today was the day when they were all going to check out the closed institution. They all met up outside Mica's house and decided Rue and Luca would be driving behind them in Mica's car while the others would drive the van they had borrowed. They agreed on how to get there and made sure they had their maps in hand.

They drove through woods-like terrain and even had to drive through a shallow body of water. It was clear that the people who had run the institution did not want it to be easily located by anyone who didn't work there or intend to have someone admitted. Surely that meant they knew they were in the wrong? Why else go through so much to hide from the world?

The institution had been built only a few hundred metres from the foot of the mountains that were called "Trinity" by the locals. Oddly enough, there were only two of them. Surrounding the institution on either side were lush trees and moss. The institution was protected by a tall cast iron fence on all sides. In the middle of the fence there was a wide gate with multiple locks. Whether the fence was to keep the patients from leaving or wild animals from coming through, it was not doing its job. The fence was overgrown with weeds, and some had grown through the lock and hinges on the gate, so it now only hung in place.

Luca parked the car and Mica, Jules and Marcus lifted off the gate and leaned it against the fence next to it. As they were doing that, a family of deer walked by. It would seem their presence had bothered them and interrupted their meal.

To be on the safe side, they decided to drive their cars inside, hanging the gate back up once they were safe inside. The building was so large that it reminded them of a fortress. It made the other institution seem small in comparison. They half expected to see a moat surrounding the building, but all that they found were toads, rats the size of ferrets and plenty of more weeds. It seemed odd to think that while surrounded by such lush nature, the patients would have been left in darkness as they were never allowed to leave or ever even go outside. To live out their lives in this place without ever seeing the sun again, that made it worse than a prison. Prisoners were at least allowed to take supervised breaks outside. And they had committed crimes. The people who'd been committed on the other hand, would've been guilty of nothing more than being an outcast. Condemned without cause.

It was safe to assume there would be no one like Mrs Elena Wilkins there to greet them. The place looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time. It was unkempt and the black stone walls were covered in poison ivy. A suitable warning for outsiders no doubt, but they hoped it meant no poor soul was still stuck within its walls.

Before they entered, they walked around the land to find out more about how the institution had operated. Once they reached the back of it, they saw a cobweb covered stone staircase leading down to what appeared to be a cellar entrance. There was a divide at the middle of the door, so that it could be opened up twice as wide. But why?

The soil around there was different too. Unlike the rest of the land, there were no weeds, no grass growing. There was what looked to be a small field, only nothing was growing there. The ground was slightly raised and there was a metal rod in each corner, as if to mark where it began and where it ended. Barren land where nothing would grow, in a place like this, surrounded by nature... it didn't make sense.

"Should we try this entrance instead?" Lune asked.

Bly nodded and went with him to break the lock and open the door. Only there was no lock to break. The door just opened when they tried it, and they almost wished it hadn't. The stench that seeped through was the foulest scents they'd ever smelled. What could possibly smell that bad?

When they went inside, their questions were answered. There was a corpse lying on the ground. Against the wall furthest back, there was a large incinerator, like a wood burning oven made out of bricks and hard metal, only it was impossibly large. They could imagine what it had been utilised for, but none of them wanted to think about that any longer than they had to. The dead person was a man, or it had been once. He must have been dead for quite some time. The body was decomposing to be sure, but there was still a fair amount of flesh to its bones.