The Estate [ONC 2022 Longlist]

Part 1

Hey everyone! Here's my entry for ONC 2022 - I hope you enjoy!

Prompt #62: The old man you've been taking care of at the hospital has passed on. And in their will, you've been given their Wiltshire mansion. It's your first day in the house but something seems off.

Genre: Horror/Paranormal

***

"Really? You're doing this again?"

Alex Chilton looked up from the IV replacement he was doing. Dylan was leaned up against the door frame of the hospital room, already changed out of his pale blue nursing scrubs and in his casual clothes. His face was impatient and annoyed.

It wasn't that Alex wanted to bail on him, but...

"Duty calls," Alex responded, finished taping up the PIVC and double checking it. He used the back of his gloved hand to push his dark brown hair out of his eyes—hair that was normally gelled and coiffed having lost its gelled hold hours ago.

The patient remained still, not reacting to anything Alex was doing.

"Yeah, sure," Dylan said, still in the doorway. "This is the third time you've bailed on me, you know."

"I know. And I'm sorry, but... you know how understaffed we are." Alex gathered up his tape and scissors.

"Doing too much, bro," Dylan said. "You're only twenty-three."

"Funny," Alex said distractedly. "Some people would say I'm not doing enough."

Dylan just rolled his eyes at him.

Dylan wasn't the type to understand—he had always been more interested in drinking and slacking off, ever since Alex had met him on their first day of college. Not that there was anything wrong with drinking and slacking off, but...

"Wasting the best years of your life," Dylan lamented. "On vegetables."

"Don't call them that."

"Sorry."

Alex brushed by him as he exited back out to the hospital corridor. The coma ward of New York-Presbyterian Hospital was unusually quiet tonight, the long, white hallways empty. Alex normally worked in the Intensive Care Unit, but had volunteered to help out in the coma ward due to the staff short. The coma nurses were always happy when he helped out—his body was long and lean, but more importantly, he was strong enough to make turning and maneuvering the immobile patients much easier for everybody—all thanks to his dedication and training for his short-lived college baseball career.

"Look, it's not that I don't want to go "bro" out with you, but—" Alex started.

"I get it, man," Dylan said. "It's cool. Hit me up later if you change your mind—and if you don't change your mind, at least go home. You know what all work and no play does to a man."

"And you know what all play and no work does too," Alex retorted, smiling.

Dylan smiled back and pointed a finger gun at him, gave him a wink, and then was gone, his hurried footsteps echoing down the empty hall until they fell away.

Then it was just Alex alone in the wide, empty, quiet hallway... and if there was one thing Alex hated, it was being alone.

He looked up and down the corridor.

Too empty. Too quiet.

Creepy.

The fluorescent light above him suddenly flickered. Alex shook it off, continuing on to the next room for his rounds. Normally, he definitely didn't mind picking up a shift in the coma ward—it was easily the most peaceful and quiet place in the whole hospital.