The Hospital

England: 1977 

The Hospital had been a bustling battleground of Doctors and Nurses fighting for the health of their patients.

Now, it was an abandoned wreck, sitting sadly in its once beautiful grounds. The trees joined forces with weeds, scrub and other creeping growth to engulf the surviving buildings.

This was a time before: cell-phones, facebook, twitter, wattpad  –  stuff you all take for granted.  

......

Friends, Paul and Jeanette were born in this Hospital. At sixteen, boredom compelled them to re-visit the place of their birth.

It was Jeanette who suggested they break-in; her thirst for adventure and love of horror films always pulled her towards derelict buildings. Paul was content to just explore the grounds and daydream; he was a sensitive boy, a trait that singled him out for 'gay boy' taunts from the guys at school. 

Jeanette didn't know if he was gay, she didn't care. 'Best friend' was the only label he needed as far as Jeanette was concerned.

"Come on Paul, I'm so bored, we'll have a laugh; if we're lucky we might find a body, or a demented doctor, like in a Hammer Horror film," said Jeanette, ploughing a path through thick bramble with a walking crutch she'd found in the grounds. "Exactly, that's what I'm scared of.  And my Dad says it's haunted you know," said Paul, with his usual nervous apprehension. "Bingo! That's even better, I'm deffo going in. Now come on, don't be a big girls blouse," said Jeanette, rushing towards an abandoned wheelchair.

Jeanette and Paul were inseparable during the summer holidays. If Jeanette was going in, then so was he, no question. Paul was girly, but he was no wuss. 

They arrived at the entrance just after noon. The sun blazed, throwing down its dangerous rays with a fierce intensity. Paul had applied a liberal dose of factor 15 to his exposed areas that morning; he didn't like to burn. Jeanette never bothered, she liked the dark tone the sun gave her skin.

Jeanette raced round the concreted inner grounds on an abandoned wheelchair; while Paul climbed the steps to the entrance, with a hopeful hesitance. 

He hoped to find the building impenetrable, so they could abandon their illegal break-in and move on to his favourite thing – window-shopping in town.

Resigned, he turned to Jeanette, still doing wheelies on the chair, "Jeanette, we won't have to break-in, looks like the doors been left open."

Jeanette pushed the large wooden door. It opened smoothly, without the clichéd creaking you'd expect from a long forgotten door.

......

Once inside, they flinched at the blinding light that flooded the reception hall from the glass domed ceiling. 

It didn't occur to them that the door might have been open for a reason. 

 ......

Jeanette expressed her disappointment, "I thought it'd be all dark, with cobwebs and dusty furniture – where's the scurrying rats and all that spooky Haunted Hospital stuff?" Her disillusion echoed around the empty space.

"HELLOOO!" hollered Paul. They listened as the word bounced off walls, disappearing in a soft whisper down the wide empty corridor that stretched in front of them.

A bed on wheels rested against the wall at the entrance to the long corridor. Jeanette pulled it from the wall, positioned it centrally, then grabbed Paul, pulling him back towards the door, "You ready Paul, let's run for it."