Villains ➵ bill skarsgård a.u.

thirty six

I ignored my cowardice and proceeded on foot, the accumulation of dead leaves on the soil cracking each step I made heading inside. It wasn’t too long before I was enveloped by darkness. There were only trees, more trees, and just when I thought I saw something different, it was another set of trees. My thoughts that I was lost started getting on my nerves. I was stuck in an abyss with nothing but a temporary flashlight to keep me away from wild animals. I pulled out my phone from my pocket and entered the location of the hospital for some kind of guide to keep me calm, I was surprised there was even a cignal to begin with.

Nothingness on the map showed I had at least another block of forest to go through before I could reach the hospital, Hillside Highschool being on the other side. I kept on walking, following the guide the g.p.s gave me, each one of my steps crunching the leaves. Right there I remembered what my colleagues told me after they went inside; the initial sense of being watched. I knew better to know no one was following me or watching me, but a strange weight on my chest remained. I tried shaking it off, the light of my screen contrasting the pitch black encompassing the forest. 

Finally I got there; the huge hospital standing right before me, hidden behind vines and just nature taking over its walls. It did look old; chipped paint, broken windows, random crime scene tapes shredded and forgotten near the entrance. It didn’t look as ominous as the photos online, if anything, it just looked like a normal condemned building that was rotting off it’s core. I shoved my phone back into my pocket and resumed walking, looking out for any traces of intruder before getting into the door.

On the get go, the smell rotting flesh greeted my nose like a truck, perhaps caused by the animals who found a living in there and just died of starvation. I wanted throw up right there and then, considered even not continuing on the assignment and just go home. It was like what chicken meat would smell like if you put it in the freezer and forgot about it for three months past its expiration date. It was a chore not to puke everything I just had for dinner, but I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t going to be able to sign off if I didn’t report my findings back to the sheriff, and I won’t be able to go home. It was either I get this over with or go back to the station looking like a complete coward.

So I swallowed the lump screaming at the back of my throat and kept on, shining my flashlight throughout the place. I was by the lobby, as expected that was where most ritual materials were abandoned, candles, random pictures, more yellow crime scene tapes scattered across the broken tiled floors, nothing out of the ordinary, just the same old rotting walls and the stench still lingering in the damp air. I covered my nose for mercy, but the smell still poked through my clothes and I was beginning to get dizzy from it. I’ve only began but it already felt like I won’t survive the rest of the search.

That was all I did for the next twenty minutes; wander farther into the building and shining my flashlight across each corner of the hallways I went through. Eventually I got used to the stench, so those were the least of my worries, and overtime it seemed to fade into obscurity. I found nothing, no druggies, no animals, I was the only person in there, and the only person stupid enough to enter it at three in the fucking morning and believe the rumors going around the station. There was absolutely no one else, and the view of the peeling wallpapers were already making me sick.

Having found nothing on the first floor, I was on my way back to the exit when I felt a buzzing in my pocket. It was from my phone, I pulled it out and there was a message from my sheriff.

“Found anything, Smith?” His text read.

“Nothing on the first floor.” I replied, and it took a minute before I got another text message.