On the Day I Died by Candace Fleming Read Free Book Online Page B

the 1880s the place had more than two thousand patients crowded onto its three floors. With that many people, living conditions were bound to suck. Chicago State was notorious for bleeding, freezing andshackling its patients. Ghostlike inmates wandered aimlessly through the wards. They went without clothes, starving and sleeping in filth-strewn hallways. And still, every day more and more patients arrived. Most came by railway, in a specially built car complete with chains and leather restraints, known around those parts as the crazy train.
    Fact #3: Chicago State was constantly making headlines. My favorites? PATIENT BOILED TO DEATH IN BATHTUB; CHILD IMPALED ON HOSPITAL FENCE WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE; or best of all— HOSPITAL’S BEAUTY PARLOR CLOSED AFTER HEADLESS BODY FOUND .
    I planned on using the headlines as captions for my photographs. See? I told you so … epic!
    Thunder crashed even louder than before, and lightning forked across the asylum’s steeply pitched roof, leaping from tower to tower like a special effect in a Frankenstein movie. The sky had turned into an ugly purple bruise. Raindrops, cold and hard as marbles, pelted my back, soaking my T-shirt. Clicking off one last shot of the gargoyle, I pushed open the heavy door and plunged into the asylum’s main hall.
    Inside, the darkness was total, as if the place was holding blackness within itself. As I stood there, catching my breath and hoping my eyes would adjust, the door behind me swung shut. A deathly cold crept down the bleak corridors, wrapping itself around me. From deepinside the asylum came the sound of something like iron doors clanking against their frames.
    I lifted my camera and took a few careful steps forward.
    Lightning flashed, illuminating the place in both darkness
and
whiteness, like a photograph—one of
my
photographs. In that instant I made out fallen plaster and peeling walls. An old-fashioned cane-back wheelchair sat at the foot of a narrow staircase. Then all went black again, and stupid as it sounds, I had the weird feeling that someone was watching me.
    “Like who, Annabelle?” I said aloud just so I could hear my own voice.
    My words echoed in the darkness. I touched the camera hanging around my neck. Reassurance. A reminder of why I was there.
    Outside, lightning flashed again, brightening the room.
    Was it my imagination, or … had that wheelchair moved?
    I took another tentative step, my knees weak.
    It’s funny how your imagination can work on you: forcing your mind down paths your logical self would never have taken; filling your head with thoughts you know are crazy. Thoughts like—Did I just hear a footstep upstairs? Or, Who is that standing in that corner? Even if there are no ghosts, the mind creates them.
    More lightning.
    Another cautious step.
    A moaning squeak, like a rusted wheel turning, whispered somewhere in the room. A high-pitched laugh gurgled down the staircase. I felt something moving—just
barely
moving—around me. The wind?
    I stopped.
    What are you, an idiot, or something? You saw the TV show. You heard the stories. Are you really going to explore a supposedly haunted asylum all by yourself in the middle of a thunderstorm?
    NO WAY!
    Whirling, I ran back to the door, grasped the knob, pulled.
    “Bye-bye, Annabelle!” I shouted.
    The door opened without resistance. Why was I surprised? Had I expected something else?
    I paused beneath the arch of the doorway and took a deep breath. Outside, a curtain of rain bowed the trees and flooded the streets. Thunder growled across the storm-tossed sky. But that didn’t stop me. Senior exhibition or no senior exhibition, no way was I going back inside. Tucking my camera under my shirt to protect it from the downpour, I stepped away from the Chicago State Asylum for the Insane.
    There was an explosion of thunder. A skull-clutching crack. Like a strobe at a nightclub, lightning flashed. And flashed. And flashed again. Above me, the gargoyle tipped, rocked,