Stella's perfect day includes working long shifts as a nurse, drinking copious amounts of coffee and doing her best for her patients by the time she's home. The only trouble she likes is what she can fix. But on the first day of her new job in upsta...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
March 13th , 2015 (Night Time)
The scientist knocked twice on the door before coming in to the room at the bed and breakfast in Athens, Ohio where we'd be going to some spooky tour together.
"Almost ready," I zipped up my leather boots over the black stockings that went under a cream v-neck sweater dress and the scientist's cleared his throat while his eyes hovered over as I got myself together.
"Here's your scarf," he handed it to me.
"Thanks but where's my necklace?" I'd taken it off before the shower but where had I left it?
"Is it this one?" He asked grabbing the thin gold strand necklace with a moonstone pendant where it sat on from the coffee table.
"Yes," I smiled holding the scarf so he walked over to me and opened the clasp.
"Mind lifting your hair?" His tender words cut through my rules and I followed through with his request lifting my hair up so he placed the necklace around my neck then closed it. "You have a birth mark right on the nape if your neck," he touched it and at once goosebumps formed on my skin sending chills throughout my body.
"Oh, what's it look like?"
"Like a small star."
"No way, really?" I thought it was cute than the dream where he called me his star came back as fresh as the night I dreamt it.
"Yes," he touched it again and I threw my hair on top of it to get away from his hands.
"Thank you," I put my scarf around my neck and let him close the door of our room.
Here laid the broken rules I followed religiously for so long, in a matter of minutes they were destroyed by him. How did he lead me astray so easily? Or why did I let him? Nothing good would come of it but we still left together for Athens Lunatic Asylum special Friday the 13th night tour. There was only one rule we didn't break, rule #5 don't exchange numbers and I expected to keep that one as my cue to get back on track.
"So what do you think of this place?" He asked me as we walked inside the asylum with about 15 other people though a huge crowd waited outside to be the next fifteen.
"Let's just say I wouldn't want to spend a night here, let alone get a lobotomy. What were they thinking damaging a beautiful living organ with such intrusive methods," I complained.
"Also the fact some patients died while other patients became completely stripped of their personalities, I'd say that is the real horror story. They were but robots responding to only one thing at a time, so dull I would've rather be crazy any day." He kept close talking to me in a whisper like manner to not intrude in the tour guide's informational speech.
"Of course you would," I shook my head and he looked around as the tour guide began a story we were both interested.
"Here we begin the story, on a Friday the 13th where you are tonight, in our very own Athens Lunatic Asylum in the middle of ordinary night a patient ran madly down the halls from her room. Her name, Mrs. Audra Ward, a woman of exceptional abilities, heretical even as recorded by her sister's diaries. Audra's little sister Amethyst, named after the stone like her other sisters, wrote that Audra could disappear from the asylum only to show up whenever she pleased in one of our five cemeteries. Amethyst wrote in her diary though Audra lost this ability after months and months of intensive treatment of shock therapy which took away her focus which meant she couldn't see her sister anymore. So on Friday the 13th in a fit of schizophrenia Audra ran down the halls bleeding from the inside trying to conceal her secret from the cruel staff. The truth you can see here on the floor and here on the walls, these are her very own blood stains." Our tour guide's raspy voice and guiding flashlight aided the bizarre story.
The tour moved along and we stopped to look at the blood, it seemed pretty real to both mine and the scientist's eyes, we communicated by a look.
"And here she was caught by three nurses you'll see the trail of blood and fingers as she refused to be pushed on to bed where they discovered she had been using her own fingernails to get something from inside of her, a baby."
The crowd gasped in horror while the thought of how painful it must've been to a woman who probably had no idea she was carrying until the birth pangs.
"Audra was desperate knowing she had broken the most important rule of the asylum, she had let herself be romanced by a man while in the asylum which to make matters worse was not her husband but a patient like her. Meanwhile her lawfully wedded husband paid for her treatment at the asylum where he visited her and always hoped she'd get better so he could bring her home but unfortunately her state worsened making it an impossibility."
"I bet he wasn't all that generous," the scientist said and for some reason I agreed.
"Then as Audra writhed in labor pain her lover heard her trying to make her way to him which then came the worst part, the very reason why Audra will always haunt this room, this place..." I sighed patiently waiting for him to get to the end of this poor woman's story that I hoped was not real.
"The asylum nurses got to Audra before her lover, although she screamed out his name, they tied her down to bed and begin to tear the baby out of the safety of it's mother womb. While putting Audra's life in great danger during the deliverance of a newborn life because of the amount of blood Audra was losing. The baby made it out alive, a little baby girl she saw the nurses pull out of her body and as Audra fixated her eyes on her first born, the evil nurses had a punishment planned for Audra who dared disobeyed their rules. So as a punishment for her sinful behavior and indiscretion they took the baby girl and one of them pierced the baby's fragile throat with their fingers. Suffocating Audra's Ward daughter in front of her eyes as the rest of the nurses held Audra down incapacitating her from doing anything to protect her child, her baby, who tragically died this night."
"Oh God," I felt like someone punched me in the stomach and when I turned my face the scientist caught me in a hug.
"It's okay shhh," he whispered to me with an arm around my back and another covering me inside his coat.
"What kind of person would do that?" I said with my head on his chest.
"I don't know love," he sighed letting the British habit of saying love slip out for the first time.
"The story stands that Audra and her baby's spirit went on to become a curse for the nurses whom each died suffocated in their own blood thirteen days apart from each other. Then of course a couple others claimed it was her lover who sought out vengeance on the nurses after he arrived and saw the love of his life and his only child dead in the room where you stand today," the tour guide explained.
"Should I get you out of here?" Dr. Herzberg asked concerned.
"It's almost finished..." I let go of him yearning to stay hidden in his coat of protection, "I... I'll be fine."
"Was there any other reason they thought she was a witch?" One of the people in the tour asked.
"Yes her husband wrote in one of his letters to her sister she had a distinct birth mark wanting an explanation of it and to know why was Audra on the run when they got married. To which her Amethyst responded that Audra was running from her coven and needed to be hidden, protected."
As soon as the tour guide mentioned a birth mark my spine stiffened as if I was being called into question, I didn't like how the coincidences were piling up in this town.
"Maybe it was a pretty one like yours?" Dr. Herzberg tried to make the heavy mood light.
"Uh yeah who knows?" I smiled and we continued walking.
"And would you happen to know why she was running from her coven?" The scientist joined in the supernatural fun as others saw it.
"Covens have strict rules? I don't know, wasn't really alive back then to know."
"And her sister's correspondence with her husband?"
"Well you'd have to go consult with the town witches at the cemetery for that answer," the tour guide giggled and so did the rest of the group as we exited the asylum.
"Of course what are their working hours?" He smiled at me as I held on to his arm wanting to almost throw up at everything I'd just heard. If Syracuse was a normal peaceful haven then Athens was a black hole of depression and everything, everyone in this place made my skin crawl.
************************************************* No part, character, names, plot, setting, conflict or resolution, point of view, theme or symbolism of this story may be replicated.
