Never There

• Savannah Sanderson, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2015

I entered the supposedly haunted structure with my friend Kate. As soon as we walked through the door way a cold chill came over me giving me a bad feeling. An older man in a suit greeted us inside appearing to be our tour guide. I wasn’t aware that we were even supposed to have a guide. As I looked around I could see there were a few people here already. There were Two young boys who couldn’t be older than 8, a women in some interesting clothing and a tall dark somewhat sinister man. I thought to myself that these people seemed kind of odd, but then again who am I to judge. We started walking down the dark halls noticing how dirty everything was.
I nudged Kate and whispered to her, “I wonder if these were the conditions the building was in when it was functional. “I hope to god not this place is disgusting, “she replied. We continued till the guide entered one of the rooms. Inside there were old wooden beds lining the wall.
“This is one f the many rooms where the sick were situated. People who had tuberculosis were brought to this place to die,” said the tour guide.
As soon as he said that it sent chills up my spine. This place is downright creepy. The tall dark man went and sat on one of the beds. But nobody said anything. We moved back into the hall when I looked back I couldn’t see the man. He must’ve stayed back to look at the room some more. The next room we came to had a chair in it, like one of those dentist’s chair. This one had straps where your hands and feet went. I didn’t even want to think what went down in this room. I looked closely at the chair and could see blood on it. I quietly walked outside of the room to calm myself. This place was beginning to get to me. The rest of the people came back out of the room, with the exception of the women, then I realised the man hadn’t come back yet. We headed to a stair case and went up to the next floor. We came into a room that seemed to be a play room for children. It made me sad to think about the poor children who had died here. The two boys started playing with a ball they had. As we walked down the hall there was the sound of running water, then we came to a room with baths and pipes inside. By this time it was just me, kate and the tour guide.
“This is the bathroom as you can see. A man was drowned in this room by two men who had gone insane. They say you can sometimes see him in this room.” Said the man. We looked around the room and then turned back to the guide to see he was gone. I looked around the room and then exited it. I couldn’t see the man anywhere same with the boys. We quickly ran down the stairs and looked into the rooms were had previously been in. there was no sign of the other people who had joined us. In a state of fear we ran to the entrance of the place and ran outside. To see our car was the only ones. Where had the other people come from I wondered and then it hit me. They were never there.