We're Ghosts in a Hail of Bullets

I could feel all of the fear run down my skin, into my bones, and pin me to the ground. Tate looked at me through the fence and asked me what was wrong.

"I can't climb," I ask with small cracks in my voice. He tilted his head slightly and then licked his lips in thought. I twisted my lips and bit my cheek as Tate turned around and vanished into the darkness. I stood there alone for a little bit just twiddling my thumbs until he came back with a giant stick. He told me to stand back so I took two steps back. He jammed the stick between the opening of the gate and then forced it open a little bit in order for me to crawl through. I had to duck under the rusted chain and suck in my stomach. My boobs were pressed against the poles, sending aches through my chest. I found my way through, stepping into the darkness with Tate. I couldn't see anything but he took my hand lightly and then lead me through the unknown territory.

"There's broken glass everywhere. Watch out," he warned me. I could hear the small pieces of glass crunch beneath my feet and poke through the holes on my shoes. I tried to stay light on my feet so I wouldn't cut myself. Other obstacles were in my way. I heard metal move under my feet, sticks breaking, dead leaves, the rustle of grass, and my own lack of knowledge of the area. Tate knew the place like the back of his hand. It was pitch black and I couldn't see a thing, but he knew where he was going. I never tripped or fell. Nothing got in my way. I was happy that Tate was my guide, but I was still a little scared. I had a fear of the dark but my real fear was the police. The last time I went to an insane asylum, my friends and I were caught by a patrol officer walking to the back buildings. He threatened us with a ticket and a car ride home if we didn't leave. I was a good child and never enjoyed getting into trouble, so I almost ran home. The police scared me. I never wanted to disappoint my parents with a police ride to their house or a ticket for something stupid. Tate reassured me that the police weren't going to find us. They never search the main building because no one likes to go in there. Teens usually party in the tunnels because that's where the bodies were dropped off. It's suppose to be haunted like any other abandoned building and so parties and raves are held there.
"People don't do their research though," he said. I couldn't see his face of course but I could hear his sly smile in his voice. He lead me through the trail in silence until we stood by the main door.

"The door is locked, but the glass with completely gone besides a few sharp edges so wait out here for just minute," he described before kissing the top of my head and the letting go on my hand. I stood there, unable to stare into the darkness anymore so I turned my head to the road. I watched cars pass by in flashes, watching their headlights. I prayed that one of them wouldn't be a cop, but I didn't care that moment because I needed to see some light. The dark was giving me chills and every noise made me jump. The stupid wind blowing through trees or Tate wrestling around inside the building. I thought of closing my eyes but that would only cause for more darkness. I only hoped for Tate to hurry up and maybe bring some flashlights. To my surprise and delight, he flashed a giant bright light in my face. I had to cover my eyes and turn away, but it was only for a minute. He chuckled a little bit, saying sorry and then illuminating the door way so I could step through unharmed. He handed me another flashlight. It was heavy, cold, black, and metallic. I used it to look around the lobby we were in. It was relatively empty. Broken class and a few chairs laid on the floor, a reception desk waited far to the right, and dark inhabited the entire room. Every window had been broken and all of the walls were drawn or sprayed on with paint. Adolescences from years past sprayed names, drawings, sayings, or other things on the walls and carved them into the desk. Tiles from the floor had been taken and probably sold for whatever. We strolled around the room slowly. I examined every inch of it, taking it in. There were only two hallways in front of us. One went straight down, it was dark, and the other was turned left and it was also dark.

"This place is a maze. Patients were known to wonder and get lost," Tate explained, "Welcome to Carpenter Psychiatric Hospital,". The town we lived in wasn't Carpenter so it confused me that it was called that. But Tate continued, "William A. Carpenter the Second built this place in Nineteen-twenty-three. He was the son of a wealthy business man with the same name. In his father's late sixty's he was stricken ill with some form of dementia and it hit Dr. Carpenter hard. He treated his dad at home with help from his mom who was a nurse, but it took him. Carpenter was so moved by his father's death that he built a hospital. It's actually named after his father, but they have the same name so it doesn't matter. He ran this hospital for forty years, building it, and shoving his heart and soul into it. His son, William A. Carpenter the Third, took over in the sixties when dementia began to take his father. Carpenter the Third shut it down in Nineteen-ninety-four. His son fell into the dunk tank in the basement and drowned. After the police found out about the accident and that they still have working dunk tanks, Carpenter was arrested,"

"What are dunk tanks?" I asked, embracing the history.

"They're tanks full of water, used for Hydrotherapy. Doctors would dunk patients into pools of freezing water for a few seconds and then let them up and dunk them again until they were on the edge of hypothermia. It was obviously out la wed along with Electroshock therapy and other forms of medical torture. When it was outlawed it was said that Carpenter the Second still did it anyways, but when he stepped down and his son took over, they never realized it was there. It was just untouched. The kid found it though. You can still here the screams and his little pitter pattering feet tap across the floors of this place," he said, moving his flash light around and turned to me.

As he moved in closer to me I stated, "You know a lot about this place,". He stepped back and smiled.

"I did a report in English. We needed to write three pages about a haunt place in California. Do you know how many people chose the Sharon Tate mansion? That house isn't even haunted but this place...this place is," he replied, "Come on,". Tate lead me through the first hallways and it's random turns. The building was a maze with countless rooms and floors and halls. We had to turn down ten different hallways just to reach the auditorium. It was another big room but no broken windows. The windows were close to the ceiling and small. The glass was made of plastic and were blue. It was a church and auditorium. Red plush chairs had been flipped over, broken, and some actually stood where they were suppose to be.

"Any history in here?" I asked curiously. Tate nodded.

"A man named Damien Goster was a pastor here before it closed. He was arrested about two weeks before it was shut down. He raped a patient. He would deal them drugs like coke and ruffies and then rape them. A patient told during a therapy session and he was gone," he explained before helping me on the stage, "He would stand up here every morning, teaching them the word of God. Can you believe it?"

"Yes," I chuckled. You always here about pastors and ministers doing stupid stuff like that. It's not surprising. "Religion is corrupt," I added. Tate nodded slightly and then lead me through more hallways. It felt like forever until he found the stairs. They didn't look like stairs though. It was another dark room that spiraled into more darkness. He informed me that it was a long way up and to be prepared. He wasn't laying. We had to stomp up seven feet before reaching the right floor. It wasn't any different from the lobby. There were missing tiles, graffiti, darkness, broken glass, and another history lesson. Tate pointed to the elevator shaft that resided to our left. Two metallic doors that were wide open and fell into more darkness. Various things were lodged in the holes from kids.

"A boy fell down the shaft in two-thousand-four. His name was Colin Miles. He was thirteen I think. Two friends watched him fall. They heard him scream. They left him there for weeks. One friend was twelve while the other was sixteen. They were brothers. The younger brother told. Police found the body at the bottom of the shaft. It was decayed, rotten, half eaten, mugged, and naked. A local hobo took his clothes and rats had eaten through his stomach," he said as he guided me through the cold corridor. I starred at the elevator, scared that something would pop out at me. I scared myself so I held onto Tate's black sweatshirt. He turned his head around and smiled at me. His hand found mine and he gripped it lovingly tight. We intertwined our fingers and continued on. He showed me the other Hydrotherapy room. It was a plain room full of bathtubs and broken bricks. They used it as a bathroom and a hydrotherapy room, apparently.

"Anything happen in here?" I questioned. Tate looked at me with a serious look, almost shock. I thought I did something wrong.

"Of course things happened. So many patients died here and one of the greatest murders happened in here," he began.

"Really?" I asked. I sat down on the edge of one of the standing bathtubs.

"Yes. Angie Warner was a nurse here in the fifties. He killed like forty patients. At first, it was an accident. They were common. Patients would fight their strong, manly nurses and it would cause the nurses to force them back more and the patients would drown. After about three accidents she began to like it. It didn't happen right after, in fear of getting caught. It took her a few weeks. But soon she was killing two or three patients a month. It was until she was caught by a guard, drowning a man who wasn't scheduled for any hydrotherapy. She jumped out of that window when the guard threatened to send her to jail," Tate said and pointed to the window behind me. The glass was gone, of course. I couldn't imagine dropping seven floors down to my death. Maybe if I was deranged and killed forty people, but not in this mind state. I stood up and hugged Tate. There was no reason for it. It just happened. I wanted a hug from him. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close into his chest. "You're shivering," he said in a whisper, "Are you scared?". I shook my head against his torso and kept my head there.

"I think I'm tired," I replied. He let go of me and took my head again.

"One last stop," he told me and then took me back to the stairs. We walked four more floors to the eleventh. The sign next to the door way read 'Children and Young Adults'. A moral on the wall in the corridor gave it away. A bright orange, yellow, and red sun was painted with multi-colored child-like figures playing under it in a green field. Written in black scripture was a bible quote that I didn't bother to read. The paint was some way chipped away so I used that as an excuse. I didn't have time to stop and admire it anyway because Tate was rushing me through a hallway. I had to take in my surroundings quickly but the only other thing I noticed was the courtyard. It held faded memories of young children playing on it's discarded playthings. I couldn't look at it long because it sent chills down my spine. We stopped at a random room. Room 1138. Tate stood in the door way with a smile on his face and stretched from ear to ear.

"What?" I asked. His smile faded slowly. Should I have known something? We stayed silent for a second.

"This is my room," he finally said. It struck me as odd that he would say that. He would've been one year old when the hospital closed down and I didn't see a crib in that room. I saw a bed made of concrete with a broken sink, toilet, and one small, rectangular window that hung high on the wall. Tate took me into the room and showed me a small carving that read, "Tate Langdon '94,".

"I wrote it two years ago. Ninety-four was for the year it closed down and the year Kurt Cobain died," he explained. I had no reason not to believe him. It was too impossible to think that he actually stayed in that room in ninety-four. I twisted my lips, agreeing with him and believing him so he sat me down on the concrete floor with him. "Do you like it here?" he asked.

"It's pretty fun and spooky. It's a perfect Halloween adventure. I just wish we could see a ghost," I responded as I rest myself against a wall.

"You can't find a ghost on Halloween," Tate said with another smile. I raised an eyebrow, asking a question without speaking. "Spirits are able to travel on Halloween. It's like ghost law or something," he said very plainly. I was thankful that he didn't go into any long history lesson. They were very interesting but I never believed in ghosts. There was tons of proof, I just never bothered to put my faith in it.
Tate reached around the bed and pulled out three big, red, and scented candles. They were Cinnamon Holiday flavored. He set them close together in a small triangle next to us and then let them.

"You knew I like candles," I smiled at him. They instantly sent a sweet scent of cinnamon through out the room and engulfed it. It was purposely romantic and kind of him. I saw it in his eyes. He looked at the flickering fires with a soft smile across his pale lips and then looked into my blue eyes as if they were the most interesting things in the were. He extended his hand; I thought he was going to grab my hand, but instead he turned off my flash light. I didn't notice that he did the same to his. We only had the candle light then. It brushed against his flawless face in waves of orange light. The rest was covered in shadow. It almost defined him as a person. We sat there in the silence, just starring at each other with smiles. I thought of my next move only for it not to happen. I wanted to reach out and touch his lips with mine, but I couldn't bring myself to do. It still ran through my mind. My heart began to beat in my chest with such aggressive rhythm that it almost scared me, but I was use to it. It was my natural reaction when I pictured Tate and I together. The slightest fictional touch would send my heart into a race. I was pathetic. Another girl lost in the world of romance. What to do with myself? I was too busy in my own head to realize that my surroundings had changed. Tate was slowly inching closing to me. I found my breath hard to grasp as the distance became shorter.

"Don't freak out, okay?" he asked, closing his eyes. Our lips were brushing against each others and I was desperately inhaling at the air around me, which was awkwardly his breath. I had nothing to grab onto and nothing to save me from this. I was so scared in a weird way. Then it happened. Our lips gently touched and my body pulsed all at once. Chills ran up and down, everywhere and I wanted to run away. My face ran hot and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. My eyes closed and I took in their experience. After I got over myself, I found out that I wanted this and I shouldn't hide. His lips were as soft as they looked and they fit perfectly with mine. I felt his hand touch my face and our kiss got deeper. It wasn't too sexy, but enough to send another pulse through my body. He pulled himself away and smiled. He seemed relieved while I sat there in shock and confusion. I bit my bottom lip, savoring his taste and feeling. I wanted to smile but my face only twitched. My arms felt like jelly and they shook under my weight. How awkward am I?

"So?" he said looking dead at me with that smile, "Was I the only one who felt the spark?". I was speechless and only shook my head. Then he kiss me again, but this was quicker. He pulled away and then held my hand. This wasn't my first kiss. I've had three official boyfriends and I did have experience with guys. I wasn't a good little girl when it came to dating, but I refused to be a slut. It took time with me, but I wasn't a virgin. I was only awkward. For some reason I lead myself to believe that the boys I like don't like me. How could Tate ever want me? I have nice features but I'm usually quiet and shy. I never make a move without asking five times if it's okay. I constantly blush and I'm always nervous. Tate found something in me that I hadn't found in myself yet. He saw through the awkward candy shell and found the soft, warm, and playful girl that laid under. He was still a mystery to me though.