Read Online Nightmare by Robin Parrish - Free Book Online

marked
as room number 502.
    Of course. I should have remembered....
    "I know this room," I explained. "The story goes that one
of the nurses working here hung herself in room 502. She was
pregnant but either she lost the baby or aborted it, because it
was found at the bottom of the elevator shaft not long after the
nurse was found dangling from the rafters."
    Jordin looked around the room again and rubbed her arms,
feeling a palpable chill.

    I felt like nothing more than a glorified tour guide as we
made our way down to the slanted tunnel nicknamed the Body
Chute. I suggested the stop after we left room 502, explaining
its history to Jordin.
    The hospital administrators decided that with so many
people dying daily of tuberculosis under the facility's roof, it
could be detrimental to morale to see bodies constantly being
taken away through one of the main exits. So the tunnel was put
to use, allowing the bodies to be removed via a railcar.
    A popular urban legend suggested that when the number of bodies grew to be too overwhelming, the hospital staff
decided to forgo the railcar and just let the bodies tumble
down through the tunnel. I had studied the history of the place enough to know that this was just a spooky story told
to unnerve people into thinking that many of the ghosts of
Waverly Hills were victims of this mistreatment and were still
here to take revenge.

    We stared down into the corridor to the point where the
light was swallowed by darkness, stretching into infinity. Jordin
grabbed a small piece of broken-off brick from the floor and
sent it sliding and rolling down the tunnel. We heard it much
longer than we could see it as it rattled on and on against the
cement floor.
    A new voice called out in the distance, a man's voice.
    Jordin and I froze again, listening hard to get our bearings on
the new sound. We couldn't make out what the voice was saying,
but as we listened, it spoke again.
    "Is that you?" the muffled voice echoed down the hallway
behind us.
    Jordin let out a nervous laugh, pumping her fists in triumph.
"This is un-stinkin'-believable!" she whispered.
    I shushed her, listening hard. The voice was speaking again.
    "Caroline?" the feeble, worried man's voice called out. "Honey,
is that you?"
    "Yeah! Yeah, it's me!" called jordin in reply, still exuberant
and celebrating that the whole place had suddenly come alive.
"This is Caroline!"
    I grabbed Jordin by the front of her shirt and shoved her up
against one of the heavily graffitied walls just outside the Body
Chute. Jordin was on some kind of endorphin high, but as she
opened her mouth to protest, I cut her off.
    "Stop it!" I hissed. "Do not provoke an intelligent haunt. Don't
taunt them, don't play with them. Don't ever!"

    "I thought you said it was a residual!" she asserted.
    "The first one was," I said slowly. "This one reacted to us. It called
out after you threw the rock into the tunnel. It's intelligent."
    I let go of her shirt, and for a moment I wondered why I'd
reacted so strongly, almost violently. Then I remembered that
haunted locations like this could get to you sometimes, transferring emotions from those who'd died here into you. Plus, Jordin
had all but insulted the poor soul who'd died here, and that sort
of thing just didn't sit well with me.
    Jordin frowned as she straightened her shirt back out, trying to process something. "But ... your parents provoked spirits
sometimes on their TV show. I've been watching it a lot lately. It
was their way of trying to get the ghosts to do something, communicate in some way."
    "Yes, they provoke sometimes," I grudgingly admitted. "I
don't like it. It's disrespectful."
    "But if it-"
    "Don't ever forget," I whispered, "we are trespassing on their
turf. We are the ones who don't belong here. We're here to observe
only."
    Jordin looked around in frustration and raised hervoice. "But
if we can't interact with them, then what's the point?"
    "Interact all you