The innocent one

diciannove

Grace: let the freak shine ;)

Grace: I need your help. Can you sneak out?

Cashmere: I'm not in prison. Pick me up in ten

I glanced at the clock on my phone. It was two in the morning. Colton was sound asleep. Getting him off of me would be the problem though. I gently lifted his arm off of my body and placed in a pillow in my spot so I wouldn't wake him up. I left a note for him in the kitchen letting him know Grace had a female problem and I had to go help. The thing with all men is that anytime you mention female and problem in the same sentence they don't want to know any more information, so Colton wouldn't question me about this if he saw the note.

I walked outside of the gates in front of the house and hopped in Graces car.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

It was a Monday night so I knew we weren't going to a party. I wondered what was going on.

Oh hell no

Grace stopped in front of an abandoned mental hospital. It used to be a functioning facility but it closed down forty years ago. Apparently the doctor had gone a bit crazy and started killing his patients. The rest of the staff tried to cover it up but twenty years later you couldn't get away with that kind of stuff anymore. Hundreds of people died and it was now considered haunted.

"I don't do haunted houses." I crossed my arms in front of my chest and refused to get out of the car.

I hadn't told anyone I was coming here and I doubted grace had either. If a ghost or a homeless person killed us no one would find our bodies.

"It's not haunted. You really don't believe in ghosts do you?"

"No. Not really."

"Then come with me. Please."

"I didn't realize this was your idea of fun. Would you rather just snort some cocaine?" I joked.

Okay I was a bit terrified. I didn't believe in ghosts, but I watched a lot of scary movies. I didn't want to be that typical girl who goes into the haunted place and of course dies.

"It's joe. You remember him right?"

"No. I was pretty drunk every time you introduced me to someone."

"Okay well anyways, we had this thing and he told me he was coming out here with some friends. That was last night. I haven't heard from him since."

"Okay so he ghosted you. You'll find someone else."

"I don't think he did Cash. I think something might have happened."

"All the more reason for us to call the cops and not go in there."

"Please Cash! If it turns out he just snuck in here, got drunk and passed out he's gonna be pissed if we call the cops."

"Fine." I climbed out of the car.

Grace and I climbed over the fence that was around the building. We didn't want anyone to see us so we parked down the side street. I was pretty sure we wouldn't get caught though. For miles all around us were trees.

"That's his car!"

She pointed to an old silver Honda that was parked inside the gate of the hospital. I wondered how he could even drive inside since the gates hadn't been opened since the place closed down. Inside the gate the grounds were overrun with trees and bushes.

"It's empty." I cupped my hands up to the window and peered inside. The inside of the car was spotless. That meant we would have to venture inside of the place.

The steps leading up to the door were broken and the door was closed with a lock. I pointed to a spot on the building where a window used to be and we climbed inside.

Inside the smell of the place was terrible. I could barely describe it other than it smelled as if someone hadn't taken out the trash in a decade. I guess that's what happened when they closed the place down.

Still this place gave me the creeps. As soon as I stepped inside I felt a chill go down my spine. I flashed the small light Grace had given me around my room. It looked like we were in a small office. It was filled with papers and files yellowed with age.

When we stepped out of the room I stepped on a beer bottle and ended up falling landing on my hip.

"Ow." I groaned clutching my hip and moaning like an old lady.

"A beer bottle. We must be close. They're here somewhere."I hoped so. This place had five floors and I really didn't want to check everywhere.

We walked down the hallway opening each door we saw. Most just revealed empty offices or empty bedrooms with graffiti covering the walls. The sheets on every bed was torn to shreds.

The closer we got to the end of the hallway the worse the smell became.

"Grace, I'm not going down there. You can but I think I'll die if I go into the room." I pulled my sweater up covering my nose.

"You're right. I doubt they'd be there anyway. Lets go upstairs."

Grace and I decided to split up. Dumb idea right? But I wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible and I could always try to knock someone out with my flashlight. It was a good five pounds at least.

The place was eerie. It was almost too quiet. If joe and his friends were here, they must be sleeping. I opened each door barely peaking through. I was trying not to imagine the former patients getting shocked at the breakfast table.

"I searched the fourth and fifth floor but I can't find them."

"Same with the second and third. I don't know what to do."

Then it hit me. In order to find them we would have to go back to the first floor. To that awful smell. I knew someone wouldn't purposely stay that close to something that smelled bad. I really didn't think we were going to find them alive. Graces face said she knew the same thing.

Against our better judgment we made our way back down to the first floor and towards the end of the hallway. I was trying hard not to breathe. At least my sweater smelled good.

"Here we go." She paused outside of the door.

A sign on the door said it used to be the waiting area.

"Open it." I said finally.

"Oh my..."

"Run!" I grabbed Grace running as fast as the heels on my shoe would let me and jumped out of the tall window. That would hurt, but I'll worry about that later. I picked myself up and ran jumping back over the fence and I didn't look back until I got to graces car.

We didn't speak the entire way back. She dropped me off at coltons house and I stepped out of the car not making a sound. I ran back to our room and dived under the covers pulling Colton's arms around me.